Happy Memorial Day! This weekend, the Galbatrosses celebrated Female Bird Day, and this galbatross in particular spent a good chunk of the weekend looking for female birds and posting short videos of them w/ID tips to my Instagram story. Species in which I was able to find the female:

• American robin: pair foraging together, female duller plumage
• common grackle: pair foraging together, female has shorter tail/duller plumage
• mourning dove: foraging together, female has plainer face
• northern cardinal
• house sparrow
• ruby-throated hummingbird
• gray catbird: female building nest
• osprey: female has breast band, in this case was bringing fish back to the nest while the male was standing sentry nearby
• barn swallow: female cream/white underneath, in contrast to the male’s orange underbelly

Some reflections…

• running female bird weekend this late makes it hard to find the females of some common/resident species…
  • Carolina chickadees have already fledged young, and the female can only be reliably identified by carrying nesting material by the time there are fledglings
  • chipping sparrows are tending fledglings, and the female could only be identified if they are attempting a 2nd nest (which they don’t always do) and she’s carrying nest material while the male is tending young
  • red-winged blackbird females seemed to be all on nests, didn’t see any
• next year’s goal sighting: while it seems female chimney swifts often lead the trio flights, they don’t always…look for aerial copulation?