On
Thu Jan 16 12:42:14 1997
From: scott931 at uidaho.edu (Patrick Scott)

wrote:

My question is: with hybrids such as this (Or any bird, I suppose, which
defies ID by observation), how does one find out for sure
what species the bird is? I realize this may be basic ornithology, but
I'm interested in finding out what methods exist to identify a bird with
great confidence. If you feel it's better not repeated or exists somewhere
in a FAQ, please respond to myself only.

Thanks!

- - - - -

I also have been curious about this -- if one has
the bird in-hand, is there some kind of DNA analysis,
or what? that happens -- I vaguely remember reading
about birds wh/ were xx% Glaucous-winged, or some
such -- is this really measurable, or was this some
sort of stochastic guesswork?

Alan Richards / alanr at orednet.org
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