3 replies to this topic

[cestma]

An earlier post in this forum spoke of species whose babies fledge with tails so short that they appear to be almost tail-less. This year for the first time I've had a crop of very young Hairy Woodpeckers show up at my feeders, and was delighted to see that they're amongst the tail-challenged. Alas, while the birds are darling, my pics are mostly lousy, the majority having been snapped quickly through a very dirty window--sigh.

Here's the one bird I found in the field:



And the only outdoors shot of the feeder birds, this one showing a recently fledged HP opposite an adult DP (the foreground Downy is on a much closer feeder).



A couple of shots of those teensy tails
:






A while later another very young HP showed up, this one with an almost orangey head spot, and having a bad hair day (down feathers + disheveled, I'd say); here he is opposite an adult male Downy (whose red head spot was visible in other shots):



And the same bird with no doubt a sibling:



I thought it might be fun to have a thread devoted to fledglings & juvies, thus the title I chose here; but if everyone would prefer one species per post, let me know. I have more young-uns to add!

(And of course, you can add yours, too!)

--Diane G.

[fisherman1313]

Number five is a great comparrison shot of Downy vs. Hairy.

[cestma]

Just think how great it'd be if it were in better focus, lighting, etc. And also if it were adult/adult, so the hairy's true length would show.

Very often I get a downy opposite a hairy at this pole, and am always thinking of getting that perfect comparison shot. (The first step is gonna have to be washing the dang window.) One of these days...!

--Diane

[cestma]

Meanwhile, field sparrows are at the opposite end of the juvie tail-length spectrum. This batch was a bit confusing; the loud one certainly seemed to be calling for a feeding (thus a fledgling?) while his/her presumed clutchmates looked pretty self-sufficient.





This one was pretty interested in sampling the grass seed:



--Diane G.