On Mon, 30 Oct 1995, Serge Le Huitouze wrote:

> I was also thinking about adverse effects, specially during the mating
> period.
>
> Wouldn't these disks be consider as "inaesthetic" by the marked
> birds' potential mates?

Well, not necessarily. Or, at least, there might be an equal chance that
the disks would be considered especially attractive, as with the
well-documented color band effect in captive zebra finches (_Taeniopygia_
_guttata_ to you, of course, Serge :-)). Male zebies with red bands were
significantly more successful attracting mates than males with no bands.
Green bands were a bit of a handicap, I think, though.

Chris Hill
Seattle, WA
cehill at u.washington.edu