Hi again,

To add more fuel to the fire in this discussion, I've observed male Anna's Hummingbirds at my feeder with cross-lighting and slightly into the sun, and the throat and forehead can actually look yellow- green if the bird turns his head a certain way.

Barry Ulman
Bellingham, WA.



On Mar 6, 2012, at 8:58 PM, Kelly McAllister wrote:

> Marc, I was paying a lot of attention to all of the male goldeneyes as they moved about, including under the bridge I was standing on. Because of the full sun, I could see the sheen on most of the males and it seemed consistently purple on all but this one male. He was consistently green. I?ve been looking over about 50 photos, comparing the various males, and I definitely think that there was something more going on than just light angle. I think this guy has some Common Goldeneye genes, maybe several generations back. However, I?ll try to remain open-minded about lighting and other kinds of variability. When I think about iridescent feathers, like the gorget of a hummingbird or the speculum of a Mallard, I can recall the variation in color that comes with light angle but I don?t think that variation goes very far outside a predictable range. To me, this male goldeneye had a head color that was outside the normal range for the Barrow?s Goldeneye. But, I could be wrong.
>
> Kelly
>
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