Positive ID

One of the difficult part of police and military operations is the issue of positive ID. Before you apprehend or take down the target, you need to make sure you have the right person. The issue in life is that the target seldom advertise their presence, much less their identity forcing people to make tough decisions.

Let me give an example. I manage to shoot a bird. It took 10 seconds to ID the bird as I figured out its specie from its size and the identity from its colour,

It is a Crimson Sunbird. The red head was the give away.

Now for the bird below. Again I have spotted them perched on the top of rod and signpost. Another 10 second problem.

It is a Pacific Swallow. I knew from its size it was bigger than a sparrow and the next family was the swallow. Looked at the swallow family tree and identified the bugger.

Now I also manage to capture a few photos of another bird. It was flying around so it was not easy to capture it. Every time, I tried to focus on the bird, it flew off to the next position.

Gonna be your man in motion........

I managed to take a shot when it was perched on a branch but it flew off before the camera autofocus could kick in.

Play the game, you know you can't quit until it's won..... 

The last shot was of the bird from the rear. If anybody has any information of this person of interest aka UNSUB, please inform the authorities.

I can see the banners fly.....

I had a breakthrough when I was looking at other bird photos. One of the site suggested a new family called tailorbird.

It could be an Ashy Tailorbird Juvenile. The bird has a brown head but when it is young, the brown section starts from the eyes section and slow migrates to the whole head. Now I have a new problem. All unidentified sunbirds will have to be rechecked against tailorbirds.

Edit:
About 2 years later, I have better pictures of the Ashy Tailorbird and the Crimson Sunbird. As for the Pacific Swallow, I have taken countless pictures. Just one of the better close-ups.