Opened up the net in the garden on Saturday morning for a nice morning session 8 Goldfinch (7 2cy & 1 Ad) plus Female Blackbird and a Female Starling was good but bird of the day was a full fat garden tick Egyptian Goose that flew over calling!
Maybe hard to tell from this image but the red does past the eye by some way as Svensson and Demongin books state as a male but there is another glue in the image the black nasal hairs. What you can't see is how bright the birds plumage is/was and the black Lesser Coverts and with a wing length of 79mm all help to id this bird as a male. Hope this helps?
Sorry if my earlier comments were too sharp for you. I did a lot of work on sexual dimorphism in passerines and wrote the paper on sexing Skylarks in the hand. So a wing length of 79 in a Goldfinch means nothing unless it is combined with weight. The obvious example of this is in Humans. There are six foot women but they are rare, so a person's height is not fully indicative of sex. Hopefully you can understand why 'back up' sexual differences are generally useless in the field. I never wish to offend anyone, so please accept my apologies. I really want young Ringers to understand what they have in the hand, its a privillage after all. Best, Mike
Why male? I thought the red had to join behind the eye to make it a male
ReplyDeleteMaybe hard to tell from this image but the red does past the eye by some way as Svensson and Demongin books state as a male but there is another glue in the image the black nasal hairs. What you can't see is how bright the birds plumage is/was and the black Lesser Coverts and with a wing length of 79mm all help to id this bird as a male. Hope this helps?
ReplyDeleteSorry if my earlier comments were too sharp for you. I did a lot of work on sexual dimorphism in passerines and wrote the paper on sexing Skylarks in the hand. So a wing length of 79 in a Goldfinch means nothing unless it is combined with weight. The obvious example of this is in Humans. There are six foot women but they are rare, so a person's height is not fully indicative of sex. Hopefully you can understand why 'back up' sexual differences are generally useless in the field. I never wish to offend anyone, so please accept my apologies. I really want young Ringers to understand what they have in the hand, its a privillage after all. Best, Mike
ReplyDelete