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Posted by Angel & Mariel on 13:46:37 04/12/13
In Reply to: Fl. City birds posted by Steven Tennis
Hi Steve,
Nice to hear that the Lazuli Bunting is still hanging around your place! Has it fully transitioned into its brighter plumage yet? When we saw it, the bird was in molt and you could see the buffy edged feathers on the head being replaced by beautiful turquoise feathers. What a beautiful bird!
The American Redstart you mention sounds like a juvenile male redstart. While adult males are easily distinguishable from adult females, juvenile males, look like adult female birds until their second year. These juvenile males have only a few scattered black feathers on the head and breast as well as on the back, and have yellow rather than orange patches in the tail and wings. This is best seen during the spring as these young birds are returning back from their wintering grounds or wintering birds here are getting ready to head north. After their first potential breeding season, juvenile male redstarts undergo a complete molt of their body and flight feathers into their black/orange adult plumage. So this means that male redstarts do not acquire their adult plumage until their second fall, the term used to describe this is Delayed Plumage Maturation. American Redstarts are one of about 30 sexually dimorphic North American passerine species of eight families that exhibit delayed plumage maturation. We attached a picture of one such male photographed in the spring of 2008.
Nature is Awesome
Angel & Mariel
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