[texbirds] Re: Strange Featherless Cardinal
- From: Joseph Kennedy <josephkennedy36@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: Clay.Taylor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2012 11:28:49 -0500
Blue jays do it to but the new feather shafts come in as the old feathers
drop so they do not look as bald but are prickly until the new shafts start
to open. Its like the no-tailed grackles which will soon appear that lose
all their tail feathers at once. Boat-tailed grackles can come close to
being bald-heads for a short period but not as much so as cardinals. And
then most ducks dump all of their flight feathers at once and cannot fly
for a period. Most molt is gradual or staged so that the birds are not
disabled, flightless or bald.
On Fri, Jul 13, 2012 at 10:12 AM, Clay Taylor <Clay.Taylor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> wrote:
> All -
>
> This is nothing new or regional - I have photos (somewhere) of cardinals
> in similar condition taken in the 1970s in New England. A few years ago
> in May, I digiscoped a cardinal like that in Cape May, NJ while competing
> in the Digiscoping Category of the World Series of Birding.
>
> --
> Joseph C. Kennedy
> on Buffalo Bayou in West Houston
> Josephkennedy36@xxxxxxxxx
>
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