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Balloon Vendor

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, syllableCommon nameGenusSpeciesIndexIndex into binomialSong numberSyllable numberSyllableExtracted word
4 9, 4, 1, 2Whooping CraneGrusamericana4S12laalamenting
4 11, 4, 2, 4Great Horned OwlBubovirginianus4O24me
9 9, 17, 1, 2Vesper SparrowPooecetesgramineus17U12en
11 9, 5, 1, 1Tennessee WarblerLeiothlypisperegrina5T11ti
9 6, 6, 1, 5Black-throated Green WarblerSetophagavirens6H15ing
10 7, 1, 1, 7Tufted TitmouseBaeolophusbicolor1B17ferverses
9 9, 8, 2, 2Acadian FlycatcherEmpidonaxvirescens8A22suh
11 10, 20, 1, 5White-crowned SparrowZonotrichialeucophrys20Y15ies
9 8, 1, 1, 1Common goldeneyeBucephalaclangula1B11peeplayed
10 9, 6, 3, 3Wood ThrushHylocichlamustelina6I33lay
11 10, 6, 1, 5White-throated SparrowZonotrichiaalbicollis6R15da
11 12, 14, 2, 3Carolina wrenThryothorusludovicianus14D23deeduring
6 16, 20, 1, 4Eastern TowheePipiloerythrophthalmus20M14your
6 9, 2, 1, 11Sprague's PipitAnthusspragueii2N111ring
8 6, 12, 1, 2Eastern Wood PeweeContopusvirens12E12aa
6 8, 7, 1, 1Western BluebirdSialiamexicana7M11fewfuneral
9 4, 2, 1, 1Inca DoveColumbinainca2O11no
11 9, 17, 2, 4Sedge WrenCistothorusplatensis*17N24rrr
5 5, 4, 1, 9Barred OwlStrixvaria4I19all
7 11, 14, 1, 1Western TanagerPirangaludoviciana14C11priprocession
7 12, 1, 1, 2Carolina ChickadeePoecilecarolinensis1P12o
9 5, 7, 1, 2Blackburnian WarblerSetophagafusca7A12say
9 12, 8, 2, 1Chestnut-sided WarblerSetophagapensylvanica8G21see
9 7, 2, 1, 5Song SparrowMelospizamelodia2E15on

*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).