Sphyrapicus varius.
Descriptions of First Plumage of Certain North Am. Bbs. Wm.Brewster.
96. Sphyrapicus varius.
First plumage: male. Crown dull yellowish-green obscurely tinged in places with dusky-red; nape and a broad stripe extending through and behind the eye dull plumbeous-ash spotted with brownish-white; rest of upper parts like the adults, the white spots, however, tinged with pale greenish-yellow. Throat dull yellowish-scarlet. Malar stripes meeting below the throat-patch, mottled with dusky. Central line of abdomen greenish-yellow; rest of under parts dull greenish and olive, barred everywhere with dusky or dull black. From a specimen in my collection shot at Upton, Me., August 10, 1874. The amount of variation exhibited by a large series of males in first plumage is considerable. In one or two there is no red upon the throat; in others that part is brownish-white with a few scattered red feathers; many have the crown dull-brown, thickly spotted with brownish-white.
First plumage: female. Crown very pale greenish-buff, each feather narrowly tipped with brown; feathers of interscapular region dusky, with transverse bands of yellowish-white; rest of upper parts like the adult. Throat brownish-white; abdomen pale brownish-yellow; breast and sides dull brownish-olive, thickly barred with dusky. From a specimen in my collection shot at Upton, Me., August 6, 1873.
The first plumage of this species is worn for a longer period than that of any other bird with which I am acquainted. Some specimens taken as late as October and November seem not to have fully perfected their first moult, many of the earlier feathers being still retained. In this condition they present a curiously patched appearance, and scarcely any two are alike. Full justice has hardly been done by writers to the adult plumage of this species. Among the males, it is true, only a comparatively small amount of variation obtains, and the full dress is always acquired the first spring. But the females in spring plumage differ to a degree which seems almost endless. This mutation is, however, chiefly in relation to the color and markings of the crown. Thus, out of thirteen females before me, all collected in the breeding season, only six have the full patch of crimson upon the crown. In one specimen the whole top of the head is spotted thickly and evenly with brownish-white. Another exhibits two lateral patches of brownish-orange which extend nearly to the occiput, while a third has a few scarlet feathers upon the forehead. The remainder are variously marked over the crown with mixed yellow and crimson. This excessive variability is probably a purely individual tendency to aberration from a given type, as several spring females not as yet through the moult, and plainly shown by the remains of the previous plumage to be birds entering upon their first breeding season, have fully developed crown-patches of pure crimson.
Bull. N.O.C. 3, Oct., 1878, p. 180-181.