Subject: King's English, & eye color
Date: Oct 13 13:17:35 1994
From: "McCloskey, Lawrence R" - mcclla at wwc.edu


Yes, agreed, the word "specie" is particularly vexatious to me when
it appears in the writing of my students...bothers me almost as much as
"it's" for the possessive. But, isn't this thread departing some from
birding? (Just a gentle question...not to be interpreted as a flame!).
Does anyone out there know of any reference or study dealing with
eye color of Rusty Blackbirds? I ask because here in SE Washington,
where we occasionally (maybe I should say "rarely") see them in the
winter and spring, a couple of these have been strange (to me)--apparent
Rustys with dark instead of yellow eyes. My reaction is to immediately
call any dark-eyed bird like this a female Brewer's, but have been
surprised and perplexed to see, upon examination (through a spotting
scope at close range) what otherwise clearly appears to be a good Rusty
Blackbird. The NGS guide says of Rusty Blackbirds: "ALL adults and fall
immatures have yellow eyes". To sharpen my question: is it possible
that some immature Rustys may be slow to develop the yellow eye color,
possibly retaining the dark eye until maybe late winter or spring? Is it
also possible that this species exhibits a clinal gradient of eye color,
such as has often confused me in Boat-tailed Grackles on the Eastern
seaboard?
I'd guess that it would not be possible to examine the question of
eye color from museum skins... And I once heard one world-class birder
say to a group of us: "eye color is NEVER a reliable ID feature in any
species." Surely that's too Draconian, right?

Larry McCloskey
Biology--Walla Walla College
College Place, WA 99324
mcclla at wwc.edu