Ruff
Two birds in one.
We have of course had what most countries would call extreme cold here in Central Canada for millennia, and certainly this year, but today I observed something new to me. A purple finch appeared at one of my feeders with an extraordinary white patch on its back and I looked at it for some minutes from inside and about 10 feet (2.5 metres) away but just couldn't decide what was causing it. At first it looked like the bird might have a tumour and then as if it might be starting to moult (not a survivable process in the present -25 C weather), but finally bringing out the binocular showed that the bird had a patch of ice crystals, rather separate and cubic like spilled iodized salt only larger, on its back. As I said, I'd never seen anything like this before, wondering if anyone else has.
The bird itself doesn't appear to be doing well, it's isolated and remaining at the feeder far more than is usual for the species. There's a thaw coming in the next few days, which hopefully will remove the ice and solve its major problem but I'd love to know how that can happen in the first place.
The bird itself doesn't appear to be doing well, it's isolated and remaining at the feeder far more than is usual for the species. There's a thaw coming in the next few days, which hopefully will remove the ice and solve its major problem but I'd love to know how that can happen in the first place.
