Last of the new hatchlings

The last of my Crested eggs have hatched, a clutch from Jiminy and Dagoji.

D3, a sweet tiger

D4, a feisty one

D4 is very active. He was not even partly out of the egg when I arrived home at 7pm, he was completely out and about by 11. A far cry different from Jiminy and Dagoji's previous success: two runtish types hatched out of four clutches. D4 reacted to my spraying to remove the perlite by jumping to the floor. He left his tail behind when I scooped him up. Those tails are crazy when they drop. Well, I guess D4 just wanted to be a frogbutt like Mom.

Video

I and the Bird #64

I and the Bird #64: Iowa Caucuses Addition is up at Iowa Voice.

Redpoll Resources

With all these Redpolls floating around (I just saw ~25 at the Lab of Ornithology this afternoon), and a lot of chatter on the listserves about them, I thought I would post a collection of online resources on Redpoll identification.

Two posts by Sibley on Redpolls:
Redpoll identification
Redpoll subspecies

A long post by Ron Pittaway (of winter finch forecast fame) on Redpoll ID

Hoary vs. Common
Superb, in-the-hand comparison shots of Hoary/Common and subspecies along with more photos on flickr (Tommy Thompson Park BRS)
Photos of a Hoary among Common by Tom Johnson
Comparison photos by Jody Hildreth
Identification from Bell Tower Birding
A few Birdforum identification posts (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

Hoary Redpoll
Photos from VIREO (VIsual REsources for Ornithology)
Photos from Garth McElroy
Photos by Jay McGowan
Hoary distribution through the winter of 97-98

Species Information
All About Birds Common Redpoll
All About Birds Hoary Redpoll

Other
Pale Common with an orangish cap
A 1937 paper on wintering Redpoll identification
A 1963 paper from the same source

I welcome additional resources! Particularly lacking are print articles, such as those from Birding, etc. If you have recommended citations let me know.

(Hat tip to Tom Fiore, Meena Haribal, and others who have posted links recently)

Source of Green Feather Pigments

From the abstract of a paper on a ring species of Phylloscopus warbler in Asia:

These results might provide an explanation as to why some species, such as the greenish warblers (Phylloscopus trochiloides), have phylogeographic breaks in mitochondrial or chloroplast DNA that do not coincide with sudden changes in other traits.

I guess we know why they're greenish now.

Feline Evolution

(Source)