Horned Finches

Everybody knows that birds need to replace their feathers once in a while, but it’s easy to forget that molt proceeds regularly from feather group to feather group: they don’t just drop ‘em all at once. This can produce some strange-looking birds, with gaps in the wings or tail, odd-colored patches where feather bases are revealed, or even ratty bare spots.

This morning Alison and I met Rita and Larry in Bear Canyon in the Santa Catalinas. It was a pleasant walk in blessedly cool temperatures, and the presence of birds like Zone-tailed Hawk, Painted Redstart, and Grace’s Warbler didn’t hurt, either. But even more than the Arizona specialties, I enjoyed watching a freshly fledged House Finch. We’ve noticed before that the last bits of down to be replaced by juvenile feathers in this species are on the sides of the crown, and the bird this morning still retained extensive puffs of unstructured feathers above each eye, like wispy horns, making the bird look like it had just got out of bed, and on the wrong side of it at that.