Wednesday, April 07, 2021

Where Are the Females?

My wife is trying to identify birds at our new home.  She had a "home list" from our other house, and has a "lifetime list" of birds wherever she has traveled, including a very mixed set of ducks on a backwater of the Danube when we were in Budapest, and some rare finds from our visit to Tromso, Norway. But this is new.  Even though it is the same town, it is a different niche, and we have only been here one year, as opposed to 33 years at the other house. She wants her list to grow.

Yet when she looks at a bird and has some suspicions, it is frustrating to her when she goes looking at her bird books.  She has many of those, I'm just sayin'. The illustrations feature the varied and sometimes dramatic appearances of the males, with no picture of the females, which are rather obviously 50% of the population of any species. I know the males have the more interesting plumage. Peacocks have entered popular culture, but the word peahens draws quizzical looks. But still...

I told her she should contact some feminist organisation to get on this.  It might distract those women into doing something that has actual benefit to society, or at least birdwatching society. And it might make my wife happy, which is a plus for me.

3 comments:

Grandma Bee said...

Kaufman's field guide pictures males(breeding colors and off-season) females and juveniles. The Audubon Society field guides picture females, although according to their color codes, not the species. No juveniles or off-season males in the Audubon books.

Mike Guenther said...

It's kind of calming and fun to bird watch. Here in the upstate of SC, we probably have a lot of the same birds as in your neck of the woods. Northern Cardinals, Chickadees, morning doves and three types of woodpeckers, The Pileated, Red Bellied and Downy Woodpeckers.

A new species I hadn't seen around until a couple of days ago, is the Brown Headed Cowbird. Hate to see these birds in the neighborhood. They're worse than Starlings.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

We know the area a bit. Son #3 went to North Greenville for two years when it was still a college, in the late 00's.