lonestranger

I wish I could help you but out of the 10+ years I have been on Whatbird I have only been using my Android phone to access Whatbird for the past few days so I am as new to this as you are. I can tell you that you may have wait for the upload to finish, it's not always a fast process. I agree with @The Bird Nuts, your description sounds like a Northern Flicker.

Welcome to Whatbird @Amber. If your photos are on your computer it should be as simple as right clicking on the image and selecting copy, and then right clicking in the message box and selecting paste. There is no need to resize the image because Whatbird automatically does that. Cropping your photo before uploading it does help the viewers to get a better look at the bird and see the necessary field marks needed for positive ID'S.

BRDL 12 ???? ???? ????

MYST??????....One of my all time favourite games. *paddles in a different direction*

I usually switch up my starting choices. There's lots of common letters that can be arranged in too many different ways for me to stick to just one opening guess.

I simply start by picking any bird and then entering the code to see if anything matches or comes close. If I figure out the first letter, like you did with your AMCO guess, then I guess a bird that starts with that letter. If a letter is in the wrong spot, I usually use that letter as the starting letter of the next bird I guess. If I don't get lucky on the first few guesses, I have still successfully eliminated letters and hopefully narrowed things down to where there's less and less remaining possibilities. I don't think in birding code while I am trying to solve the puzzle, I think about the bird's real name and then check to see if the code would fit. I'll admit that a lot of it comes down to a lucky guess or two to point you in the right direction but don't get discouraged if your lucky guess doesn't come in the first few guesses.

I've started taking screenshots after each game so I can remember how I achieved the solution and discuss it the next day. After looking at my results from yesterday, I probably shouldn't have started with Rose-breasted Grosbeak because it uses the letter R twice, and the same applies for Mallard with the double L. Once I had the M from Common Merganser and the A from Mallard, I switched them around and made a guess that it was an American something or other. That's when I referred to iBird and after eliminating a few birds because of the letters I had and didn't have, I took a wild guess on American Dipper and got lucky. I've found that I need to refer to a list of birds for the simple reason that while I might know of most of the ABA birds, there's no way I would even think of some of the possibilities without a list, especially for birds from other parts of the continent.

BRDL 11 ???? ????

How's it feel to be an enabler to a new addiction?

I just went through some of the conflicts listed for the birding codes and it seems like BRDL rejects some codes in favour of the alternate code. I have no idea how or when an alternate code is used, but it might be worth keeping that in mind when a known code isn't accepted.

I checked this website that @Charlie Spencer shared and it shows BANO as an alternate code for Barn Owl, and BADO for Barred Owl. Both are accepted in BRDL. https://www.carolinabirdclub.org/bandcodes.html

<spoiler> tags </spoiler> don't work. ?

Welcome to Whatbird @WendyLeeW. When and where did you photograph this bird?

BRDL 10 ???? ???? ???? ????

The faces you make when you have an itch that you just can't scratch.

'Hello wordl' will probably be right up your alley then. If you're not familiar with it, it's like Wordle with extras. You can play continuously, and choose the length of your words from 4-11 letters. If anyone is hooked on Wordle, this one is sure to fuel that addiction for a while. ? P.S. Setting it to 4 letters is also a good way to practice the strategy aspect of the game and apply it to the 4 letter bird codes in BRDL.

I think it's up to you, but most of us have been going about 2-5 days. I'm in favour of a last call type post before announcing a winner but it's not a requirement.

I like it. Screenshots could show the solved puzzles with the letters in place and the different ways people got, or didn't get the solution. @neilpa just replied and makes a valid point, next unread topic would be a real spoiler for those not wanting a spoiler. Hmmm....Perhaps another option is a "Yesterday's BRDL" thread. Screenshots from today could be posted and discussed tomorrow. That should eliminate any chance of spoilers spoiling things with the Next Read Topic.

Once I figure out a letter or two, I use my iBird app to scan a list of possible birds starting with those letters. Of course there's always a chance that the one or two letters I have guessed are trailing letters and not leading letters, but it shows me possibilities I never would have even thought of and can lead to ideas for other possibilities.

What kind of seed are you using? Black Oiled Sunflower Seed is the most popular seed but it can sometimes take a while for the birds to find a new food source regardless of the type of seed. Once a few birds realize there's food to be had, your feeder will become more and more popular. In the meantime, I'd refresh your seed regularly, just putting out a little at a time and dispersing the old stuff on the ground. Your increased activity at the feeder will draw more attention to the feeder and the scattered seed on the ground will attract more birds. Before you know it the birds will be waiting in line for you to fill the feeder.

I'm still not a fan of using banding codes but I'll admit that this game is giving me a better understanding of them. BRDL 9 ???? ???? ???? ????

BRDL 8 ???? ???? ???? ????

I missed more than one possibility, @The Bird Nuts. Another possibility is that people watch everyone else do it and just follow the crowd, monkey see, monkey do kind of thing. There's too many reasons, legitimate and questionable, to list them all. Hopefully @Kevin's recent polite reminders, and my rant, will help jog the memory of those that have forgotten the rules. ?

Please forgive my rant but I can't understand why people continue to post more than one photo when it has been politely pointed out time and time again that the theme of this thread is intended to showcase "Your best photo of a bird species". There is no "s" to indicate multiple photos are requested and @Kevin has specifically, and repeatedly, asked that everyone post just ONE photo of each species, so why are there still posts with multiple photos? Are people not reading the requests for just one photo, do they just not care, or are they just being defiant? Rhetorical question. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we all know that it's hard to pick just one photo... tough... pick ONE! While I'm up on this soapbox, I want to point out that there's many, many threads in the photo sharing section and most of them have a specific theme. As an example, Your Best Photo of the Day thread is pretty self explanatory, post your best photo of the day. It's not asking for all your photos of the day and it's not asking for your best photo from last year's archives. Before everyone gets in a panic, I'm not suggesting that all photos should be processed and posted on the same day they were taken to qualify for Best of the Day, but if they're not from your most recent shootings, they probably don't belong in the Best of the Day thread. There are other threads that apply but I think I have made my point with the example above. Let's try to keep things on theme and respect the way the thread was intended to be, there's no need to cram ALL our photos into one or two threads. Please people, show respect for the rules/guidelines that have been set. After all, a Moderator has set the theme of this thread, let's not push him into acting like a Moderator just to stay on theme. ? *kicks soapbox aside*