Hi Tweets

Simplest is best: phases are time-limited; morphs are permanent.

Juvenal plumage is replaced by something else, hence it's a phase. But if
you are born a pale-morph something, you are pale-morph for life. As an
example, eastern gray squirrel has both black and grey squirrels in the same
nest: those are their defining colors throughout their miserable panhandling
lives and they are morphs.

So when you see a phrase like 'blue-phase Snow Goose' your are seeing
mis-usage; 'blue-morph Snow Goose' is correct. That's how they're born,
that's what they look like all their lives.

So, to re-frame the question: is there such a thing as a brown-morph
Gyrfalcon? or are such brown Gyrs just a phase of immature/subadult plumages
of grey-morphs?

Michael Price
Vancouver BC Canada
loblollyboy at gmail.com

Every answer deepens the mystery.
- E.O. Wilson
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