Gold/pinkyredcrest! (1 Viewer)

On Tuesday 12th Oct. en route to Kessingland (going for the Pallas's & YBW), I stopped off in Felixstowe for a break!...and did some birding in the seafront gardens, whereupon I came upon several Chiffys and Goldcrests. There appeared to be much interaction with the latter, particularly around a particular Corsican Pine (If I've ID'd the tree correctly..large clustered needles?).

Normal median crown stripe is as we all know...yellow! During the chase, I noticed the crown stripe on the chasing bird change from yellow to a bright pinky red!

Has anyone else observed this colour change? (and no..it wasn't a Firecrest!)

:eek!:

Male Goldcrest has a bright orange crest often only seen when displaying. I guess this could look pinky red in certain lights.

Robin Hi,

First time.....I've ever seen it! although I once saw a bird sporting a deep 'gold' crest quite different from the normal yellow. Clearly Crests and Kinglets can vary the intensity of their respective crowns...this being mood dependant.

I was once watching a Ruby crowned Kinglet (across the pond) thinking how dull its crown was...when suddenly! its crown 'switched on'...it was like moving at night in slow traffic during the rain...when all of a sudden the car in front slams it's brake lights on...such was it's intensity.

cheers

here's a pic of the orange feathers which can show when crest is flared

http://www.lundybirds.co.uk/images/Very Goldcrest.jpg

KenM said:

........... Crests and Kinglets can vary the intensity of their respective crowns...this being mood dependant.

Click to expand...

I don't know of any bird that can voluntarily change the colour of it's plumage - and I'm sure it's not physically possible - as the colours in feathers are either caused by light diffraction or pigments, and are physically fixed. What probably happened with the Goldcrest occured because of a combination of change of lighting angle and the bird expanding it's crest to show the more saturated colour in the centre of the crown. As Ruby-crowns have the smallest "crown" of all the Kinglets it doesn't show as a seperate patch until the bird expands it, therefore appearing to flash into view and look brighter.

Chris

I'm pretty sure that the colour of a crest's crest is partially due to think film intereference effect - get the angle right and the colour can seem different. A bit like green headed Mallard can look purple

Clearly when a Crest/Kinglet is in 'excite' mode it switches on it's crown stripe! the mechanism that controls this was aptly described in Chris's previous post. I have seen Firecrest 'switch-on' and off! when moving in close proximity to the photographer (me) under the same lighting conditions, closed canopy woodland. This I believe is a different process to diffraction/Iridescence as best shown on a sitting Hummingbird...the throat changing from purple to black with the turn of it's head. A number of years ago myself and two colleagues were watching a Melodious Warbler that was showing only intermittently on the outside of a Bird Cherry tree. When viewed in direct light it's upperparts appeared leaf green with bright yellow underparts. Most of the time it was feeding under canopy in the crown of the tree and what surprised us, was that when viewed from underneath it had simply changed colour! The green and yellow being replaced with tea coloured upperparts and off white underparts with just a smidgeon of yellow on the belly! A number of years later at risk of appearing a fool! I explained the incident to Martin Cade the Warden at Portland and he said that he was not surprised..suggesting that from their experience with Melodious they call it the 'Chameleon bird'. Probably having trapped,rung and released more MW than anywhere else in the UK. I've not been able to find any mention of this phenomena regarding MW in text and am in no position to explain the mechanism that governs this extreme change..particularly under canopy. :h?:

cheers