Subject: Re: terminology
Date: Jul 9 09:42:57 1998
From: "Martin J. Muller" - martinmuller at email.msn.com


Tweetsters, ma'am ;)

Wednesday Diann wrote:

>>>>Gentlemen:

perhaps one of you could post a listing of plumage terminology a la H-P plus
a citation for those wishing to follow it further.

This discussion has been among a very few; I imagine there are many out
there who would value a synopsis, or list, of the plumages in order from
downy young to adult.<<<<

Wouldn't you know it, only minutes after I deleted all the old email
messages cluttering my computer's memory, a request for something from
Tuesday's postings. So I went to the tweeters website and retrieved it (glad
to do it):

>From Michael Price's Tuesday posting (tucked in a reply to Jim McCoy):

snip>>>>> here's how hard the Humphrey-Parkes plumage and molt-terminology
actually is:

--a bird is downy, then it's in Juvenile/Juvenal plumage, then it will be in
either immature or Definitive Basic or Alternate, or in molt between them.
Period.

<snip>

Most birds we know have regular molt periods and phases. The bird is in
juvenile (once), then alternates between Basic (roughly, 'non-breeding')
plumage --what it's in most of the time-- and Alternate (corresponding to
'breeding), its display plumages. Once the bird reaches a certain age, the
appearances of Alternate and Basic plumages don't change any more and so are
'Definitive'. This doesn't necessarily mean the bird is adult, that may or
may not --depending on type of bird-- take a further year or two more, but
it wears the same plumage patterns as the adult bird.

Say for a three-year gull or shorebird:
Down--> Juv--> pre-Basic 1 molt--> Basic 1 --> pre-Alternate 1 molt-->
Alternate 1--> pre-Basic 2 molt--> Basic 2--> pre-Definitive Basic
molt--> Definitive Basic--> pre-Definitive Alternate molt--> Definitive
Alternate et seq.

then bounces back and forth between Def Alt and Def Basic for the rest of
its life.<<<<<

Thank you Michael!

For those wishing to start at the beginning:

Humprey, P. S., and K. C. Parkes. 1959. An approach to the study of molts
and plumages. Auk 76: 1-31.

but any manual of ornithology will give you a description of the system.

But (don't you hate those "buts"?), one minor critical note to Michael's
posting:
snip>>>> Basic (roughly, 'non-breeding') plumage --what it's in most of the
time--<<<<

I would not have added the remark about the bird spending most of its time
in Basic plumage. Just look at the Mallard here in the Pacific Northwest, it
is in Definitive Alternate/breeding plumage from roughly October - July
(look at them out there, in their eclipse/non-breeding/Definitive Basic
plumage right now). Similarly, the Pied-billed Grebe changes into Basic
plumage sometime in October-December (some later) and will be back in
Alternate as early as January or March at the latest. This is the only part
of the otherwise crystal-clear system I find confusing, and (I'm only human)
this confusion led to my initial resistance to adopting the system. Not
anymore, though. Perhaps it is better to refer to Basic plumage as the
plumage a bird molts into (shortly) after breeding. That helped me out
(still has its shortcomings).

Martin Muller, Seattle
MartinMuller at email.msn.com