365Caws is now in its 14th year of publication, and was originally intended to end after 365 days. It has sometimes been difficult for me to find new material, particularly during the winter months, but now as I enter my own twilight years, I cannot guarantee that I will be able to provide daily posts. It is my hope that along the way I may have inspired someone to a greater curiosity about the natural world. If so, I can rest, content in the knowledge that my work here has been done.
Wednesday, May 8, 2024
American Goldfinch, Spinus Tristis
Day 208: The Goldfinches (Spinus tristis) are almost in full "bloom" now, having exchanged their drab winter colouration for summer's yellow plumage. They're still a bit pale, but even the females have taken on the greenish cast which makes them easy to pick out in a crowd of LGBs ("little grey birds"). In flight, there's no mistaking a Goldfinch. They fly like they're hanging bunting or a Christmas swag, in swooping dips followed by a peak which pins the top of the pattern: swoop, pin, swoop, pin, swoop, at last coming to rest on a branch or wire. As a human who has hiked trails like that, I can assure you that it has nothing to do with energy conservation, this going downhill just to climb back up again. So why has this flight pattern been selected for in their genes? Some bird species exhibit the same trait, but others are straight-line fliers, never losing altitude until it's time to land. There must be some advantage yet to be proposed by science for the swag-like flight of these golden ornaments of the sky.
Labels:
American Goldfinch,
flight pattern,
Spinus tristis
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment