In April, GrrlScientist posted a picture of a blue house sparrow seen in April among normal colored birds. She commented on the nature of its mutation.

Passer domesticus, var. blue

Birds and butterflies aren’t blue because of pigment but because of their surface texture of their feathers or scales, so I’m guessing that this is a structural change in the feathers.

It would be very interesting to get the local university to put up a mist net, band their catch, and perhaps pluck a feather or two. I’m curious about the genetics of family members — I wonder if some of the brown ones are heterozygous for blue feathers and how many ordinary sparrows it would take to find out. And will the chicks dig it?

GrrlScientist has a follow-up and more photos from the one who spotted this bird in Sydney, Australia, in April.

Ambivalent Muse has a blog post with screen captures from last year’s Chimney Swift cam in Glenham. They folks in Glenham built a chimney-like structure, and when swifts nested in it, were able to video them.

The nest is a simple curve of sticks glued to the wall.

The birds just flop into it face first.

Go to the article for more pictures and a  link to the web cam.

Road-runners!

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

I caught a bit of a nature show on birds: The Life of Birds, with David Attenborough narrating. Some of the birds of New Zealand really caught my eye.

Flightless birds: kiwi, rhea, cassowary, ostrich & chick

Perhaps it’s just as well that the elephant bird or the terror bird are no longer around to dine on us; but it’s a shame that the giant coots, flightless parrots, kiwis, and other birds are so close to extinction.

Skeleton of giant, flightless bird

The kakapo is a ground-living parrot of New Zealand. It survives only on one or two islands, and even there up in the hills where climate is harsh. The birds eat the juicy bases of grass stems and it takes an adult bird at least a year to teach its single young how to forage. Consequently, they don’t mate every year.

The kakapo, a flightless parrot that eats grass

And the hoatzin! I’d heard vaguely of a bird that had claws on its wings. But I never pictured the way the nestlings climb around on branches.

Hoatzin chick using clawed wings to climb

They look very much like prehistoric birds just getting ready to use their feathers for the first time. Gliding from tree to tree has evolved much more often and in more animal taxa than pure flying.

Hoatzin chick climbing

The hoatzin is so adapted to eating masses of low-energy vegetation that it flies poorly. But its wings are well developed. The claws are a juvenile evolutionary trace.

Updated from 2 July 2008 because I finally inserted the pictures.

National Geographic has a sad story. They have the first ever photograph of a rare quail in the Philippines not seen in several decades — taken at a food market. The unusual bird was then whisked away and sold for meat.

Worcester's buttonquail (Turnix worcesteri)

I wonder how often something like that happens when the photographers aren’t around? Fisherman in Newfoundland used to chop up giant squid and use them for bait, not realizing that the squids were unknown to science.