This morning as we were banding, Bill showed me just the head of a bird he was about to band and asked, “What is it?”
(Photo (c) Jan Runyan)
This is one of the tests a “sub” bander gets from time to time. I could tell it was in the Thrush family, but I had to admit in the dim light of the garage I couldn’t tell which one. Then he revealed the tail. The bold sapphire color made it clear he was holding an Eastern Bluebird.
(Photo (c) Jan Runyan)
“Male or female?” was his next query. I smiled because that’s not hard to determine.
Then he showed me the back. Yes, the tail and rump were in-your-face azure like a male, but the back and wings….so much brown, so dull like a female.
(Photo (c) Jan Runyan)
He definitely had me scratching my head over this ID. I felt pretty uneducated until Bill finally said, “I don’t know which it is, either!”
We dove into the bird banders’ guides. The differences they wrote about sounded pretty clear for older birds—maybe this could be a young one? The key seemed to be working pretty well until we came to these two entries for young birds:
“5A Wings, tail, head and back bright blue or, in winter, tinged with brown…..Male*.”
“5B Wings, tail, head and back bright blue, or, in winter, tinged brown…..Female*.”
Yes, the difference is just the word “with” and a comma.
The asterisks took us to a note below: “Some birds may be difficult to sex and should be sexed U if plumage characters are doubtful.”
Side-by-side seems pretty obvious, but a female by herself can sometimes be confusing. (Photo (c) Bill Beatty)
I had to smile. We know so much information about birds. Sometimes the color of one tiny feather or subtle wear of feathers can speak volumes about a bird’s age. Sometimes the difference between deep black and brownish-black or between white and buffy-white tells the gender.
But yet there is still so much we don’t know. I am truly glad to live in a world where we don’t have all the answers and where there are still things to be searched for, studied and just plain wondered about. There is also happiness in not knowing…just enjoying the mystery.
Post Script: We finally labeled the bird as unknown sex, unknown age, which later caused the software which receives our bird banding data to say the electronic equivalent of, “What?! I don’t think so! Do you want to rethink this entry?”
Bill Beatty Nature 