On February 22, 2018, Ken Brown challenged ABC members to the game of Stump The Experts, and it was as funny and fun as the WOS version that inspired it.

Maggie Tieger, on right, explains her reasoning.

As game administrators, Ken and Ed Pullen, took potshots from the contestants. Those “expert” contestants consisted of the entire crew, divided into two sides, led by Ryan Wiese and Diane Yorgason-Quinn. Ken had a bunch of slides of birds that were not obvious as to identification and offered each slide to one side or the other, and Ed ran the projector, timed each side, and kept the score. Many of the photos were by Ken and Heather Voboril and a few others in the club. Some were ancient history and were very hard to decipher (Rustic Bunting — really??).

We had deep discussion on the recent controversy over a photo from Seattle that some thought was a Broad-winged Hawk and some thought was a Cooper’s. We had a couple of Coops in this contest, too.  Some of us still think that Flycatcher was a Hammond’s, not a Pacific-slope! Of course we didn’t have the opportunity to see what it did with its tail or hear its call.  One interesting aspect of the contest was that the perceived real experts (B.L., M.R., for example) were as stumped as the rest of us on a bunch of these!

One of Ken’s washed-out slides!

At the end, it appeared that Ryan’s side had won, although Diane’s side had pulled up pretty close. A final score was not actually mentioned, as everyone was deep into discussion of the finer points when our time was up. As we broke up, a slide showing a dead Carolina Parakeet as a woman’s hat decoration brought up back to the reality that that species went extinct 100 years ago yesterday.

Why are these people smiling?

Can we have trophies next year, Ken? First and second place?  Or perhaps Booby prizes (Blue-footed and Red-footed!).