Hello everyone. Let's welcome Round 172 of the Show Me A Photo or SMAP Contest hosted by @nelinoeva. Check out the contest post here. Know more about this. Read up and join in the fun.

The theme for this week is:

BIRD COUPLES

For this week I would like to share some of the bird couples photos I have in my archive which I still have not posted here in Hive. They may or may not be male and female as most species do not exhibit any sexual dimorphism, meaning both male and female look exactly the same. My first example are these 2 pigeons.

Could you honestly say which is which? My guess is the one on the left is the female since it appears to be smaller than the other one. Sometimes size is a good indicator of a feathered friend's gender.

Next off are these two Zebra Doves which I caught resting on the road. Chances are these two could be mates as they seem quite close to each other.

My guess is the one on its feet is the boyfriend watching over his lady love.

The next photo will not leave anything to doubt as to gender. This is easy.

How about some Birdswallows in flight? It's not too clear but these two are chasing each other and the male is trying to impress her with its flight.

I also captured a couple of sparrow sharing a meal from our dog's food bowl. Can't tell though what their genders are but chances are the one on the left is male. The other one, hard to tell.

The next one is a shot I am quite lucky to have. These birds are very shy and seldom stay out in the open when they sense anyone near them. This couple, I must say, are probably of the opposite sex. They live together in the empty lot beside the road and forage together, walk and hide together. These birds are called Tikling here in our country or Barred Rail.

The next pair to be featured are these two Philippine Pied Fantail birds or Bangkiyod here in our country. Looks like the one on the left is standing guard over the other which would probably make him the male.

The last pair I will be showing are these Yellow-Vented Bulbuls perched on the electric lines near our house. These Bulbuls also do not show any sexual dimorphism so hard to tell which is boy and girl.

And now for the question posed in the title of this post: "Who's the pairest of them all?" Actually this is a pun of a Walt Disney cartoon where the evil queen who wanted to be the most beautiful in the kingdom always asked her magic mirror, "Mirror mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?"

And the best pair of them all goes to this cock and hen, here taken from a different angle. This is also my entry for this Round.

Wow, that was a bit difficult as I also love those two pigeons in the first photo. I do hope I made the right choice. Anyway, here's to a big good luck to all the participants. The entries have all been awesome so far. Here's me signing off and wishing you all a blessed weekend.

(All photos are mine. )