I’ve been watching the falcon cam and it seems that the babies have gone from white to adult plumage in a couple of weeks. Are the growing new feathers, or do feathers change color?
A vote for brand new feathers. In fact birds continually replace their feathers throughtout their ife by molting.
new feathers.
there will be another molt in about a year where they get the pretty adult colour.
there was a falcon family in canada where they had 5 eyaes. mom and dad died before the kids fledged. the kids were not fed for around 2 to 3 days, then they were rescued when falcon watcher reported that the parents had not been seen.
the youngest falcon was hitting a major growth spurt at the time she was not fed. her new feathers did not come in well at all, and she had many interesting rescues before she was placed with a rehab. until her adult feathers came in. the juvie feathers were very brittle, and some were missing.
you can check out her and her sibs story at the canadian peregrine foundation.
she (viking) was released from rehab. after her adult molt.
And in the newly-hatched (white) phase, they’re covered with down, not feathers.
(IIRC, they actually go through two layers of down—the first is pretty thin, and they’re quite susceptible to exposure; the second, thicker layer comes in about the time they get too large for convenient brooding on the part of the parent.)
They are gaining new full-fledged feathers. The process is called ‘fledging.’ Baby birds at this stage are called ‘fledglings.’
Of course it is really none of my falcon business.
Good one Paul. The new feathers errupt encased in a plastic-like coat. As the feather elongates, this coating is preened off. This leads to the observation that the feathers “grew overnight” when in fact they did not.
This process is also the answer to ‘Why are there no baby pigeons?’ Before the fledge they are hidden in nests up on ledges. Once they fledge, they look pretty much like adult pigeons.