Birds of Strange Feather

John Carlson over at Prairie Ice has a nice post on a male "Frankengrouse" he found strutting in the sage looking for a mate.

This bird was a naturally occurring Greater Sage-Grouse/Sharptail Grouse hybrid (more pictures here), and is almost certainly fertile, but it may not matter as this poor fellow does not quite speak the correct "bird language" of either species.

This is a real problem for hybrid birds, who may end up as awkward suitors with the wrong call, the wrong dance, or the wrong nesting behavior.

For more on naturally occurring animal hybrids, see Darwin Drives a Hybrid Animal.

In other bird news, Florida admits defeat in the fight to eradicate exotic the Purple Swamphen.

The Purple Swamphen is indigenous to Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia, and is about the size of a chicken. Two separate subspecies are loose in Florida.


.