Yesterday I saw this very unusual looking Black Phoebe at my friends place just east of Canon City,CO. I was fairly stunned by the odd plumage on this bird. In the past 15+ years I have seen several hundred Black Phoebes, many of which I have followed for hundreds of hours but I have never seen one that looked like this. That said, I think I understand why it appears to have a
'mohawk' cut on it's crown--I think it has lost several feathers between the smooth feathers just back from it's beak and the very rugged looking raised crest--this gap in feathering accentuates the difference between the forward and rear crown feathers, giving the bird the appearance of having a 'mohawk'.
I expect that the remainder of the ruffled and rugged look are due to the bird being in a molt though I must add again that I have never seen a Black Phoebe molting so severely. Possibly due to missing feathers due to molt, it's primaries appear unusually long. I believe it is undergoing a Definitive Basic molt which is a complete molt according to
Birds of North America online. Not only would this not be a PreBasic molt because that molt is incomplete but I saw this bird 8 days ago when it was apparently in earlier stages of molt and it was clearly already in Definitive Basic plumage.
You can enlarge these pics to see this rare hair-do better by double-clicking on the pic. I took some pics then and will add them in the next post for comparison purposes. SeEtta
Yesterday I saw this very unusual looking Black Phoebe at my friends place just east of Canon City,CO. I was fairly stunned by the odd plumage on this bird. In the past 15+ years I have seen several hundred Black Phoebes, many of which I have followed for hundreds of hours but I have never seen one that looked like this. That said, I think I understand why it appears to have a 'mohawk' cut on it's crown--I think it has lost several feathers between the smooth feathers just back from it's beak and the very rugged looking raised crest--this gap in feathering accentuates the difference between the forward and rear crown feathers, giving the bird the appearance of having a 'mohawk'.
I expect that the remainder of the ruffled and rugged look are due to the bird being in a molt though I must add again that I have never seen a Black Phoebe molting so severely. Possibly due to missing feathers due to molt, it's primaries appear unusually long. I believe it is undergoing a Definitive Basic molt which is a complete molt according to Birds of North America online. Not only would this not be a PreBasic molt because that molt is incomplete but I saw this bird 8 days ago when it was apparently in earlier stages of molt and it was clearly already in Definitive Basic plumage. 
You can enlarge these pics to see this rare hair-do better by double-clicking on the pic. I took some pics then and will add them in the next post for comparison purposes. SeEtta
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