Spring isn’t the only season in which you might see baby birds. Community naturalist Kersti Muul shares a report with photos:
While doing my weekly tern-colony surveys (earlier this week), I encountered my very first baby seagulls ever.
I’ve renamed them french-fry cheetahs!
Also, They did it again!! The West Seattle crow pair who had two caramel babies (leucistic) in 2019, just fledged two more!
While leucistic birds are not considered common, or ‘rare’, it is very rare to have two in the same brood, and then have two again. I couldn’t believe my eyes and I wonder which parent carries that gene … The babies are gorgeous with pale blue eyes against their soft brown feathers and pink gapes. Both (all black) parents have a recessive gene for leucism and each chick has a 25% chance of being leucistic. They had three chicks total; one black, two brown. Interestingly enough the leucistic chicks have brown feet and pale bills which kind of belies the definition of leucism, as only the feathers should be affected. Of course I will be looking more into this!
As for the aforementioned tern colony (previous report here), Kersti says she hasn’t seen any eggs hatch yet.
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