Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Your non-typical specimen was probably a juvenile, but maybe just a non-typical adult-- kinda like a 7ft tall human is not typical of the species. but does occur in a small percentage of individuals....The very word "typical" means "pertaining to the type."..In taxonomy, the "type specimen" is one selected for it's average characteristics, and it is the representative that all other specimens are measured/compared to.
This is the goldfinch to which I refer:
Notice it doesn't look anything like the bright yellow, black capped, pink beak male but it is a much brighter yellow than the typical female goldfinch I'm used to seeing and it does have a grey beak. It looks wet. Thanks to you and Gerania.
Notice it doesn't look anything like the bright yellow, black capped, pink beak male but it is a much brighter yellow than the typical female goldfinch I'm used to seeing and it does have a grey beak. It looks wet. Thanks to you and Gerania.
that's an Orchard Oriole, our smallest oriole and perhaps why you are confusing it with a smaller bird. Note the 2 white wing bars and complete yellow throughout the breast and flanks, female Baltimore would have some grayish color on belly.
Fits perfectly if you're in Tennessee. Orchard Orioles are small and slender in comparison to the more common Baltimore (at least where I live) and every other specie of orioles in North America.
also note the beak is long and slender, unlike the conical shaped beak of American Goldfinch, totally different shapes. Orioles aren't seed eaters like Goldfinches.
also note the beak is long and slender, unlike the conical shaped beak of American Goldfinch, totally different shapes. Orioles aren't seed eaters like Goldfinches.
Aha! Thank you. I was in Delaware when I took the photo. I did see Baltimore Orioles on that same trip but also goldfinches.
I never see Orchard Orioles in Tennessee even though they are here according to the range maps but it's more likely that I don't see them because I'm less likely to photograph birds in the summer and in April and May, I'm usually in Delaware. But now that you told me what bird it really is, it looks exactly like the photo here:
"The Orchard Oriole is a fairly common summer resident across Tennessee. It is present in the state from mid-April and departs from early July to late August. The population in Tennessee, as well as rangewide, is declining."
In our area we were advised to remove our bird feeders until the outbreak is over.
True. Even as Master Gardeners we are advising people to remove gathering places for birds such as feeders and bird baths. I have a waterfall and pond but birds only come to it individually so it is still safe.
also note the beak is long and slender, unlike the conical shaped beak of American Goldfinch, totally different shapes. Orioles aren't seed eaters like Goldfinches.
Good call. Goldfinch beak is shorter with wider base (finch -like) as opposed to the long, narrow beak of the orioles. Orchard oriole female is a bit bigger than the male goldfinch, but easily confused for it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LauraC
I apologize for making my original post in a goldfinch thread. .
Yea. Let's watch that next time, hunh? Some people have all the nerve....(Good photo. Please post more. Makes for good discussions.)
In regards the Salmonella thing-- I'm bettin' it's lazy science &/or propaganda by the very profitable Non-Profits like Audubon, etc...Salmonella is a normal colonial in avians (always handle eggs & poultry in your kitchen as if they are contaminated--They probably are)...I rather doubt anybody has collected dead birds and done legitimate cultures of blood or internal tissue to claim Salmonella was anything more than a passive bystander... Around here, house finch populations are normal and they all eat at the same feeders....Finches are well known to have fairly wide swings in population numbers periodically-- a less extreme example than the 17-yr cicada, but the same principle. Cf- wolf/deer populations, etc.
What did Gerania and I have to do with making it look wet?
Resurrecting this three year old thread to state that our goldfinch numbers are back up to almost their numbers of five years ago...The normal cyclicity of population numbers was most likely to blame for the low ebb seen in those past years.....
We can't exclude the imagined Salmonella outbreak as the culprit. Even if that were the cause of the fall in numbers, we would expect a rebound as the resistant genotypes lived on to replace those lost to disease-- epidemics always show a wave pattern of decreasing peaks over time...
The observation that other species visiting my feeders did not show a fall in numbers suggests it was just a natural phenomenon related to the peculiarities of the species -specific constant values applied to the N-K Population Model.
I guess we can look forward to a couple years of increasing finch number followed again by a few years of falling numbers, and da capo.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
