#juvenile plumage

[harkthorn]

Beautiful birds, and it's terrible how few of them there are around now-even the Herring Gull, shown here, is on the Red List for UK Bird Conservation: https://www.bto.org/our-science/publications/peer-reviewed-papers/status-uk%E2%80%99s-breeding-seabirds-addendum-fifth-birds

[cazort]

In case people are curious, this is a young one. A lot of birds, this species included, start off their lives with camouflaged plumage. This is because the mortality rate of young birds due to predation is extremely high, mainly because the birds are inexperienced.

If they survive their first season, their chance of being killed by a predator declines greatly, mainly because they're birds, and they can fly! So once they know what they're doing, they're pretty safe.

But that first year is rough. So evolution has given them an extra boost of this camouflaged plumage. It's standing out now, but against a backdrop of winter vegetation it would be nearly invisible in many environments.

After that first year they develop bold black-and-white plumage that makes them easier to spot. You can find great photos contrasting adult with juvenile plumage of this species here.

Black-crowned Night-Heron at night! Brooklyn Bridge Park, Pier 5

[spirit-sys]

i wonder what revali's adult plumage would have looked like..

[nerdyqueerandjewish]

I feel like I know a decent amount of birds but then I’ll go birding and be like “what the fuck is that?” for what feels like everything

[minmos]

hahahaha we just had a completely bald blue jay at one of the feeders

Naked!

[supercantaloupe]

i showed my sister (avid birder and wildlife ecologist) the mysterious dead bird i found on campus on saturday and confirmed it’s a juvenile common loon

[electric-skillet]

Monologuing to myself about my interests so that I can be Normal in a real conversation

[sparrowlucero]

what's washington's eagle?

One of Audubon's unidentified birds, a very large sea eagle with a 10 foot wingspan. He claimed to have spotted them very rarely - suggesting they were nearly extinct - before he managed to shoot and dissect/paint one, which he described in detail:

This is often modernly explained as Audubon not understanding that young bald eagles lack the white head and thinking they were a new species. I personally think that's bullshit; not only does the bird only very superficially resemble a bald or golden eagle (some of the traits including a lack of mottling and an abnormally prominent supraorbital ridge along with, of course, it being huge), he was entirely familiar with juvenile bald eagles and painted/described them accurately:

if that wasn't enough, he also directly stated this wasn't the case:

Being convinced that the bird was unknown to naturalists, I felt particularly anxious to learn its habits, and in what particulars it differed from the rest of its genus. Mr. Wilson had confounded it with the bald or white-headed eagle, one of the young of which he has given the figure of, to represent it. But I am strongly inclined to believe that he never saw this bird; for it must be acknowledged that he was a very close and accurate observer, and, had he met with it, could hardly have fallen into so great an error, unless he was deceived by the near resemblance which the young of these two species bear to each other in plumage, although their difference in size is very great: but, in the old birds, the likeness ceases to exist; both in habits and appearance they are totally dissimilar.

(page 133)

more reasonably, it's been suggested he made up a giant american eagle (audubon's paintings are all life size so this would be very impressive in a gallery, and of course an eagle is very immediately evocative) in order to impress investors and plagiarized the illustration entirely rather than drawing it from life:

the other option, of course, is that he wasn't bullshitting and there really was a very large, near-extinct eagle in north america at the time that he described accurately; apparently a specimen or two were even listed in museum archives at the time (hence my comparison to the long-necked seal).

[herpsandbirds]

Spectacled Owl (Pulsatrix perspicillata), juvenile with the last remnants of immature downy plumage on head, family Strigidae, order Strigiformes, Costa Rica

photograph by Jean Bonilla (@wildlife_journeys_cr)

[awkwardbirdsdreaming]

Bird #24 - the diederik cuckoo (LC)

Adult female plumage.

Also known as the didric or dideric cuckoo; named after the male's loud territorial call that consists of a few long repeated 'dee's followed by a quick 'derik'. This cuckoo lives throughout sub-Saharan Africa, but also further north in the Arabian peninsula. Females and juveniles have this shiny coppery colour, but males are more of a glossy forest green with some blue and copper hints.

[aliceduke]

the beautiful thief A literal horde of starlings lived off my fig tree last summer, the juveniles look so weird with half drab brown baby plumage and half insane iridescent adult feathers

[great-and-small]

There is a season tern, tern, tern!

Three Royal terns resting on a warm beach. The third is a juvenile, you can note the dark gray wing bars and paler bill. Royal terns don’t gain their adult plumage until three years of age. This species can live up to 30 years in the wild!

A group of Royal terns can be called a “Highness”

[todaysbird]

the blue-banded toucanet is a relatively small member of the toucan family. they are found in tropical forests of bolivia and peru. these toucanets tend to be social, and are often found in pairs or small groups. like other toucan species, they are primarily fruit-eaters, but are opportunistic feeders that will take lizards and other small prey. the sexes share the same plumage, but juveniles are duller in coloration.

[michaelnordeman]

Blackbird/koltrast. Värmland, Sweden (April 6, 2024). Juvenile blackbirds, along with female adults, exhibit a brown plumage. It's the mature male blackbird that stands out with its striking black hue, complemented by an orange or yellow beak and eye ring. But all of them are beautiful!

[oopsabird]

it may seem like an odd niche but whenever i catch myself in despair these days, whenever i think the world has gone to places we will never reel it back from, i think about peregrine falcons.

more specifically, i make myself go read again andy johnson's cornell birds article about peregrines at taughannock. it describes how the diligent decades-long efforts of conservationists working for a future they might never see with their own eyes brought the peregrine falcon back from the absolute brink of extinction in north america, through the lens of their recent re-appearance in an ancestral breeding ground from which they had previously disappeared over fifty years ago:

[...]

On June 9, 2020, the first of the young falcons leapt from the ledge, tak­ing unsteady but successful flight across the gorge and alighting back on the cliff wall below the nest. The others hesi­tantly followed suit later that day. After fledging, the young would return to the nest ledge to roost at night, hunkering back into their familiar sanctuary after long days of exploration and learning. The venturing young birds soon discov­ered a dead hemlock trunk that reached out almost horizontally into the gorge, affording an expansive view from which to rest and preen. As luck would have it, this newfound real estate was on my side of the gorge, jutting out just below my vantage point. As one of the fledglings took flight from the nest ledge, I watched it glide below eye-level straight toward me, crossing the creek far below, and swooping up to land on the near snag, backlit and radi­ant. The adults’ slaty plumage was dusty and worn by this point in the season, but the juvenile seen up close sported buff-colored banding and scalloping on its fresh new feathers, and even a little tuft of down still on its head. It turned on the perch, adjusting its clumsy-taloned grasp and beating its wings to regain tentative balance. While the young bird was still finding its footing, it was every inch a Peregrine Falcon. By August, the gorge was quiet once again. The falcon family had departed on migration, streaks of white guano beneath the empty ledge the only sign left of their return. Months later, deep in the winter of 2021 and well before the first signs of a new spring, two svelte adult peregrines returned to the gorge and began their rituals anew, flying in unison, reorienting to the sensation of shale underfoot, and undertaking the serious work of growing their numbers, a few hard-shelled eggs at a time. As of this printing in late summer 2021, Taughannock’s wild Peregrine Falcons have embarked on their next half-century with a resounding affir­mation of past progress. This year they successfully fledged another four young.

To watch young falcons emerge from the mouth of Taughannock two years in a row, toward new gorges yet to be found, was thanks to a far-reaching and defiant vision. The decades-long recovery—a bold experiment to reel a species back from the brink of extinction with our own hands—was characterized by the uncompromising tenacity of a few peo­ple who had faith in the impossible, and a commitment to ends that might not be realized in the span of a human lifetime.

In February of 2019, at age 91, Dr. Tom Cade passed away, perhaps in the same moment that wild Peregrine Falcons first canvassed Taughannock gorge for nesting. He certainly would have loved to see Peregrine Falcons here in Taughannock, further culmination of a life’s work—a new line of peregrines completing a homecoming of their own accord, and a fully fledged testament to the long span of tireless work poured into recovering their forebears.

[ilikeit-art]

The screaming piha (Lipaugus vociferans ) is a species of passerine bird in the family Cotingidae. It is found in humid forests in the Amazon and tropical parts of the Mata Atlântica in South America. It is a common bird in the middle and lower parts of the canopy at altitudes below about 500 m (1,600 ft), or up to 1,000 m (3,300 ft) in Venezuela and the Andean foothills. It is adapting well to human settlement areas like gardens and parks, and is considered to be of least concern by BirdLife International.

The screaming piha grows to a length of about 25 cm (10 in). Both sexes have dull grey plumage (wings and tail often somewhat duskier) and the underparts are paler grey. Juveniles are grey tinged with brown or rust.

It has a voice that is extraordinarily loud, reaching 116 dB, second only to that of the white bellbird. In the breeding season, up to ten males may gather in loose leks, where they sing to attract females. The Cofán people of Ecuador call it the Pwe-pwe Yoh, which is a reference to its voice. Among the Ecuadorian Secoyas, the bird is known as the Kwow-kwee-yo. The sound is frequently used in movies as a sound typical of the Amazon rainforest.

Despite its distinctive voice, the screaming piha is an elusive bird, remaining still for long periods and blending in with the branches. It is usually solitary, but may sometimes join a mixed species foraging group. It feeds mainly on fruits, but also consumes insects, sometimes flying out from its perch to pluck a fruit or catch an insect in the air with a trogon-like hover.

Description source: