Greetings,

Noticed this on Nebraka Birds.

Dave Beaudette
Wenatchee,WA
drtbrdr at earthlink.net

Re: [NEBirds]Pink Franklin's - summing it up (for now)
Author: John McCarty
Date: 04-30-03 11:32

I looked at the Birds of North America species account
for Franklins Gull - it had two interesting points
about pink Franklins:
1) They point out that the common "pinkish bloom led
early ornithologists to call it the Rosy or Prairie
Dove.." (I think I'll start calling them Prairie
Doves...)
2) The pink color is from carotenoid pigments. This
is typical of red and orange pigments in birds and are
picked up in the diet (they fade because of exposure
to sunlight, just like Tom's flamingo specimens).
Since these gulls molt in winter on their wintering
grounds it is plausible they pick them up from
invertebrates, possibly shrimp or other aquatic
inverts. (The data on the pink color comes from Alan
Brush, a gull expert who used to be at Univ of
Connecticut).
Cheers,
John


--- "Thomas E. Labedz" <tlabedz1 at unl.edu> wrote:
> I've been enjoying the string here on pink gulls.
> I've yet to dig out my old
> ornithology notes and dig through the library for
> data but here is what I
> remember about pink gulls. Understand I'm going way
> back in my memory banks to
> get this and cut me some slack if I'm off.
> The pink is transient color only present in
> reproductively active
> individuals. It is not the same as the pink in
> flamingos and is not caused by
> diet nor is it permanent. My experience with pink
> gulls is that the pink fades
> quickly after death and you won't find pink gulls in
> museum collections because
> it is transient. I've pulled frozen franklin's
> gulls from our freezer
> (pesticide poisoning) at the museum and watched as
> the pink disappeared after a
> few days at room temperature. Quite amazing.
> Flamingos, and other diet induced
> color in birds remain after death, fading only in
> reaction to UV light. I'll
> try to remember to dig up the biochemistry on this
> and report back to this
> group.
> Keep the curiousity alive. Use these sorts of
> questions in your classrooms
> and with your own kids and grandkids. And have fun.
> Thomas Labedz, Lincoln