Cornell replies to our yellow Rose-Breasted Grosbeak

Sent: Monday, May 11, 2009 11:47:24 AM
Subject: Re: Yellow-breasted Grosbeak?

Dear David and Jennifer,
That's a great shot! The red in the Rose-breasted Grosbeak's breast is under the control of carotenoid pigments. When there's too little of a specific pigment the red becomes orange. If there's even less, it becomes yellow. Sometimes we see a bird that is missing the pigment in a part of its feathers, a white-headed robins or perhaps a crow with a large white patch on its wing. Sometimes a bird just has a little too much or a little too little pigmentation in its feathers and occasionally birds are missing all pigmentation, albino birds. There are a number of causes of such lack of pigmentation. You can read more about birds at our All About Birds web site at http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/attracting/challenges/strange_birds/ .

I'd like to encourage you to consider posting this photo at Birdshare, a free photo site the Lab has established on the popular photo site Flickr. You can learn how to join Birdshare on our blog. Once you've joined, sending us your favorite photos can be done with the click of a button. The Lab then uses some of these photos at other parts of our web site. See http://birdsredesign.wordpress.com/2008/12/09/bna-says-thanks-to-birdsharers/ . It would be wonderful if you'd be willing to submit photos to Birdshare. You can tag each photo with information you desire and, if you're willing to help us, putting in the common and scientific names of the species would be terrific.

Anne Hobbs
Public Information Specialist
Cornell Lab of Ornithology
http://www.birds.cornell.edu

Interpreting and conserving the earth's biological diversity through research, education, and citizen science focused on birds.