It's the time....
of the season....
(dum, dum, dum)
for feather mites.
In this time
preening isn't easy
(dum, dum, dum)
and you can try with beak and feet
To preen away the nasties
on your head
but they're just out of reach
Its the time
for male card'nal pattern bald-ness!
of the season....
(dum, dum, dum)
for feather mites.
In this time
preening isn't easy
(dum, dum, dum)
and you can try with beak and feet
To preen away the nasties
on your head
but they're just out of reach
Its the time
for male card'nal pattern bald-ness!
I could go on, but there's a restraining order...
Every fall we get several calls at Bird Watcher's Digest about "This weird-looking bird at my feeder! It's like a cardinal but it has a black head!"
It's an annual occurrence. The feather mites build up on cardinals and other birds in late summer and concentrate or do their most obvious damage in the one place that a bird cannot preen: its own head. I've seen bluebirds and blue jays with similar feather loss, but it seems to be most common or at least most noticeable in northern cardinals.
The head feathers get degraded by the mites and fall out. For a week or two the pathetic-looking cardinals come and go to our feeding stations sporting vulture-like black skin heads. Then, in one of Nature's most merciful acts, new feathers grow in and the cardinals look normal again.
12 comments:
Nice post. They're starting to look a whole lot better now, those bald guys.
I can believe in the restraing order.
we have a number of grackles with solar panel heads.
What an interesting phenomenon. We live in the woods. We have a large population of cardinals but the mite population must be non existent. At least to the point of causing visual damage.
HA!
Love the song.
I was singing it loud and large!
The Zombies will never sound the same to me.
What's your name?
Who's your daddy?
Actually, that looks a whole lot like a guy that works down the hall from me. I wonder if it be rude of me to ask if he has mites...
Creepy!
Valuable information indeed.
I was singing along...you are a funny, funny man! Thanks for a sorely needed laugh today.
Poor ugly thing. He must be very embarrassed.
Love that tune! Took me way back to psychedelic days.
I had a Bluejay this past August who, like your Cardinal, was a candidate for The Feather Club For Males.
Boy, that song does linger, don't it? Guess that's why they call it a "hook."
I've never seen one of these guys, but that song will be stuck in my head probably until I do.
Ha! Loved the poem! I feel sorry for the poor bird however.
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