December 2018

Plumage

“Plumage” comes from the Old French meaning feathers or appearance. Today the word is almost exclusively used for a bird’s set of feathers. Depending on the species, birds have various plumages throughout the year. Feathers wear out, are broken, or lost and they need to be replaced on a regular basis, and in the process …

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Avian Color Morphs

We are familiar with soaring hawks overhead in search of prey. Red-tailed Hawks, Ferruginous Hawks, Swainson’s Hawks and others we distinguish by their markings, mainly their underside because that’s what we mostly see. But occasionally it gets a little confusing because one Red-tailed Hawk, for example, might be darker or lighter than the last one …

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