Hi Tweets,

Tom Foote writes:
>> the males I've seen have been noticeably
>> smaller than the females

Don Baccus replies:
>While on average this is true, the reason the banding keys don't allow sexing
>is that there's far too much overlap to do so with confidence based on size.
>
>That, of course, being my point.

There's also that there may be some (small) variation in the size of birds
depending on their breeding area. Set against experience, with so many
wintering birds from sometimes considerable distances present mixing in with
residents, how would one know whether the size of the bird under observation
is truly representative of the particular subspecies? How could one
interpret variations between ill-fed and well-fed individuals, between
younger and older birds, between genetically similar and dissimilar birds,
to be confident in any generalisation?

Michael Price We aren't flying...we're falling with style!
Vancouver BC Canada -Buzz Lightyear, Toy Story
mprice at mindlink.net