1/7/2021 0 Comments Male or Female?We've been looking at a lot of birds over the holiday and while the library was closed, I spent a lot of time watching my own feeders. I even had the chance to introduce birding to my niece and nephew, who thought it was exciting and a little weird that their aunt spent so much time staring out the window watching birds on feeders. Then again, a lot of the things I do they think is a little weird. But one question they seemed interested in is how to tell the girls from the boys. And for some birds that's easy to do and for some not so much. Some birds, you can still tell the boys from the girls, but it's a little more subtle. These downy woodpeckers below may look like the same individual, but in fact the picture on the left is male and the picture on the right is female. How do I know? Well look at the back of their heads. See that red spot on head of the left picture - that's how you know it's a boy. Only the males have that mark of red. So for some birds, its a special marking or different shades of the same color that can help you tell the difference. But for some birds it's impossible to tell. To this day I can't tell which chickadee is male or female, the same goes with the tufted titmouse, the dark eyed junco, the song sparrow, the blue jay and a whole collection of others. Can you tell which of the two blue jays below is a male or a female? I can't, but that's okay. As I tell my niece and nephew that's what makes nature so mysterious. The joy is in finding out, not knowing the answer. Where would all the fun be if we knew everything?
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