[birdposting] baby pigeon looks like BALLS!

sorry i was fried and too lazy to explain. so certain birds fluoresce under UV light- especially the wings. this is due to a class of pigments called porphyrins- they're the least common of the 3 groups of pigments birds have, but many owls have them

when we band owls (for me specifically it was the adorable Northern Saw-whet Owl) we briefly hold them under a UV lamp and extend the wing to analyze the fluorescence (this does not harm the bird in any way but sometimes it pisses them off. they are usually very patient and well behaved during this process).

we do this to age the owl. we age birds by their molts (losing feathers over time and regrowing them). for the owls, when we look at the wing fluorescing hot pink under the light, we look to see how uniform the pink is. if it's patchy and some feathers are a brighter pink than others, it's an adult. this is because it's gone through at least one molt- newer feathers are brighter pink and older ones that haven't molted in a while are duller or may not fluoresce at all

if lthe bird is a juvenile, the whole wing will be a uniform pink because it hasn't molted any feathers yet!!

i'll attach some more pics

I saved some pics about it!

Owl

NO WAY, thats the absolute CUTEST

I wanted to do something like that but then I realized if a get a real job I can just buy all the birds I want

they want u to get a bachelors just to do unpaid labor for this kind of thing

Yeah symmetrical ears so you don't look like a freak.