Birds
by Benjamin L de Bivort, Jay Strader
Answer: DIRGES
The birds can be readily identified using Audubon's North American Bird Guide at https://www.audubon.org/bird-guide. Each bird's speech bubble starts with an enumeration of their binomial name, followed by an index number. Indexing into their binomials gives (along with the spacing between birds): SOUTH BAY BIRD MNEMONIC PAGE.
The phrase refers to the South Bay Birders Unlimited's web page at https://web.stanford.edu/~kendric/birds/birdsong.html, which gives a list of songs/mnemonics for each bird. The second line of each given speech bubble indicates a song number and syllable number to apply to that bird's list of mnemonics from this page.
Extracting one syllable for each bird this way gives (along with the given white dots and spacing between speech bubbles): LAA*ME-EN*TI-ING FER*SUH-IES PEE-LAY-DA DEE-YOUR*RING A FEW*NO*RRR-ALL PRI-O*SAY*SEE-ON. With the spaces dividing words and the dots dividing syllables, this reads as LAMENTING VERSES PLAYED DURING A FUNERAL PROCESSION, which clues the answer DIRGES.
Enumeration, index, song, syllable | Common name | Genus | Species | Index | Index into binomial | Song number | Syllable number | Syllable | Extracted word |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
4 9, 4, 1, 2 | Whooping Crane | Grus | americana | 4 | S | 1 | 2 | laa | lamenting |
4 11, 4, 2, 4 | Great Horned Owl | Bubo | virginianus | 4 | O | 2 | 4 | me | |
9 9, 17, 1, 2 | Vesper Sparrow | Pooecetes | gramineus | 17 | U | 1 | 2 | en | |
11 9, 5, 1, 1 | Tennessee Warbler | Leiothlypis | peregrina | 5 | T | 1 | 1 | ti | |
9 6, 6, 1, 5 | Black-throated Green Warbler | Setophaga | virens | 6 | H | 1 | 5 | ing | |
10 7, 1, 1, 7 | Tufted Titmouse | Baeolophus | bicolor | 1 | B | 1 | 7 | fer | verses |
9 9, 8, 2, 2 | Acadian Flycatcher | Empidonax | virescens | 8 | A | 2 | 2 | suh | |
11 10, 20, 1, 5 | White-crowned Sparrow | Zonotrichia | leucophrys | 20 | Y | 1 | 5 | ies | |
9 8, 1, 1, 1 | Common goldeneye | Bucephala | clangula | 1 | B | 1 | 1 | pee | played |
10 9, 6, 3, 3 | Wood Thrush | Hylocichla | mustelina | 6 | I | 3 | 3 | lay | |
11 10, 6, 1, 5 | White-throated Sparrow | Zonotrichia | albicollis | 6 | R | 1 | 5 | da | |
11 12, 14, 2, 3 | Carolina wren | Thryothorus | ludovicianus | 14 | D | 2 | 3 | dee | during |
6 16, 20, 1, 4 | Eastern Towhee | Pipilo | erythrophthalmus | 20 | M | 1 | 4 | your | |
6 9, 2, 1, 11 | Sprague's Pipit | Anthus | spragueii | 2 | N | 1 | 11 | ring | |
8 6, 12, 1, 2 | Eastern Wood Pewee | Contopus | virens | 12 | E | 1 | 2 | a | a |
6 8, 7, 1, 1 | Western Bluebird | Sialia | mexicana | 7 | M | 1 | 1 | few | funeral |
9 4, 2, 1, 1 | Inca Dove | Columbina | inca | 2 | O | 1 | 1 | no | |
11 9, 17, 2, 4 | Sedge Wren | Cistothorus | platensis* | 17 | N | 2 | 4 | rrr | |
5 5, 4, 1, 9 | Barred Owl | Strix | varia | 4 | I | 1 | 9 | all | |
7 11, 14, 1, 1 | Western Tanager | Piranga | ludoviciana | 14 | C | 1 | 1 | pri | procession |
7 12, 1, 1, 2 | Carolina Chickadee | Poecile | carolinensis | 1 | P | 1 | 2 | o | |
9 5, 7, 1, 2 | Blackburnian Warbler | Setophaga | fusca | 7 | A | 1 | 2 | say | |
9 12, 8, 2, 1 | Chestnut-sided Warbler | Setophaga | pensylvanica | 8 | G | 2 | 1 | see | |
9 7, 2, 1, 5 | Song Sparrow | Melospiza | melodia | 2 | E | 1 | 5 | on |
*Some sites list the scientific name of the (North American) Sedge Wren as Cistothorus stellaris instead of Cistothorus platensis due to a 2014 phylogenetic study. For this puzzle, we're going with Audobon's page (as of the date of the Hunt).