Baby-faced bird moves.
Whilst all my babes are growing up, some grow faster than others.
Some species grow directly into the feather morph for their first season, representing their actual adult plumage (with a faded bit or a patch here and there.) Others develop feathers that are designed to purely get them where they need to go on migration as soon as humanely possible. The snow goose for example is believed to be laid as a fresh egg and fly away within a period of just 70 days.
This Emperor goose female has a simply lovely set of feathers at this time. They are the fattest of geese (occupying far northern reaches of Alaska and the Northern Pacific) and the fattest of goslings, but this intermediary bulking up stage leaves them looking rather diminutive. As adults they have a wonderfully barred silver body with intricate black and white detailing coupled with a brilliant white head. It will be several months before this adorable little bird moults into this feather morph, retaining in the meantime her lovely freckles. It is rather selfishly nice to be able to still identify my babies running around the field before they disappear off to other centres at the end of the breeding season. With a poor age structure this female represents a large proportion of the future of the Emperor flock.
The youngest of the white-winged duck are also starting to colour. Their feather changes seem to me to be a slow and steady process, never halting in one place for too long. Yellow and brown down gives way to chestnut breast feathers and brown flanks, a touch of an eye stripe and a chocolate brown eye. Next comes the freckles, and the fleckling of shiny green feathers on the necks of the males. In addition, a shot of blood red pigment begins to flood through the iris, giving them a slightly merciless look. Depending on sire and dam genetics, birds will begin to colour up on their heads anything from completely dark charcoal grey with a few white freckles, through to completely white with a couple of charcoal freckles. The UK birds at the moment seem to be 70:30 dark faced, but I am told the US population is predominantly white in the face. Occasionally some individuals exhibit very distinctive markings indeed. Historically we have seen spectacled markings, monocles too, and quite distinctive striping. Cross fingers for some diverse facial markings in the 2012 batch...
It was with great reluctance that the 2012 Harlequin duck returned to the Arundel centre. I had so wanted to see them grow up!
I am led to believe that their feathering remains identical to each other, the one male (right in the photo) only observed through his greater size. I will be very interested to hear on their updates, but on the plus side; they get to stay babies that little bit longer!
