Gullable

A Purple Finch sings on a branch, high on life. Immature Male Purple Finch A few days ago, I was walking into Stanley Park when a Purple Finch caught my ear, singing its heart out on a cherry blossom branch. To my surprise, instead of being raspberry red like an adult male, this individual was brown and streaked like a female. Was this the heretofore unobserved behaviour of a singing female PUFI*? Turns out, we can find the answer if we look a bit closer. Juvenile Purple Finch plumage is brown and streaky, so young males can be confused with being female. Unlike White-Crowned Sparrow, which often moults into adultlike plumage within the first half of its second calendar year, Purple Finch lacks a prealternate (prebreeding) moult. This means that male PUFI are not adorned with their characteristic red plumage until the prebasic (postbreeding) moult in the summer, which will replace every feather. We are not left entirely in the dark however. Purple Finches might not have a prealternate moult, but young birds have an inserted moult in their first year of life (the preformative moult), which replaces low-quality juvenile feathers. This moult is partial, including some to all median coverts and up to 10 greater coverts (Pyle 2022). The boundary where replaced feathers meet old ones is called a moult limit, and is often helpful in ageing birds. A FCF/SY (First Cycle Formative or Second Year) male Purple Finch. Moult limits indicated by arrows at median (blue) and greater coverts (red). Above, the blue arrow points to the moult limit between the retained juvenile (left) and formative median coverts (right). The red arrow points to the moult limit between the two inner greater coverts and duller, retained feathers. *Although females have been reported singing for brief periods, it is said to differ from the male's song (Wootton 2020). ...

A Christmas Miracle It was Christmas Day, and I was itching to get outside. After spending the morning with family, I checked my weather app. A clearing in the rain gave me enough time to get out for a quick bird outing. On a whim, I decided to walk the seawall along Sunset Beach Park, which is only a short stroll from home. During the winter months, and when the tide is high enough to deter people and dogs from clambering around the exposed seaside, wintering Short-billed Gulls loiter on a patch of rocks near the Inukshuk Monument, a smorgasbord of white and grey and coffee-with-cream-brown. One time, a Bonaparte’s Gull joined the congregation, a species that I am used to seeing either bobbing up and down in the bay, or slicing through the air with ivory-edged wings. Slowly, I made my way out of False Creek, my senses perhaps heightened by a world subdued. Traffic seemed quieter than normal, and heavy skies blanketed the landscape in a dull light. I had tempered my expectations for what I might find. A Long-tailed Duck or Surf Scoter diving near the seawall. Some Ring-billed Gulls scouring the grass for any potential morsel. Perhaps an overwintering warbler’s song emanating from one of the few trees planted around the park. By the time I reached the aforementioned Short-billed Gull grouping at the farthest end of the park, I was already content with what I had seen: Bonaparte’s Gulls flying circuits in and out of False Creek, occasionally diving down for fish; a battalion of Barrow’s Goldeneyes making their way from underneath Burrard Bridge; and watermelon-shaped Cackling Geese grazing below the hornbeams. ...