I took this guy out of the net on Wednesday. He was just stunning. I like redheads, especially in the sun! He was also, of all the birds that I've handled so far, the most vigorous at trying to get free. He definitely pecked me:
If you can't tell already, the male has red extending from the end of its nostrils (nares) all the way down the back of his head, or nape as it is sometimes called. The female does not have a continuous streak of red from her nares to nape.
One way we sometimes sex birds when there is less clear sexual dimorphism is by looking for a brood patch or a cloacal protuberance. When the female is incubating eggs or has young in the nest she plucks a bunch of feathers from her breast so that she can make closer contact with the eggs or young in order to better keep them warm. The area on her breast lacking feathers is called a brood patch, and it is easy to see if you just blow gently on her breast. A cloacal protuberance is basically a swelling of the cloaca seen in reproductively active males (even though there is no penetration in bird sex, the male's cloaca is still larger than a female's typically in breeding season). It can be seen by blowing gently on the feathers near the tail. I checked this guy for a BP and CP, as they are known in banding lingo, and found a BP but no or very small CP. Confused, because he seemed so clearly to be a he by his coloration, I consulted Pyle's bible on identifying North American birds and it says these are not reliable indicators of sex in a red-bellied woodpecker. I wonder if this means that the male helps incubate and sit on the young, I'll have to look that up later too.
After I let this guy go, he immediately started searching the tree nearest to me for food. He was on a mission!
No comments:
Post a Comment