Jasper County Democrat, Volume 10, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 April 1907 — A Curious Bird Mistake. [ARTICLE]

A Curious Bird Mistake.

Many birds frequenting flowers for honey or insects are.thus liable to get their heads covered with pollen. And since the pollen of different flowers varies In color, a bird may become yellow headed, red headed, blue headed, etc., says the London Globe. This led to a curious mistake In the case of a New Zealand binJ. This bird wad a honey sucker and a haunter of flowers. Now, In the early summer it visited most frequently the flowers of the native flax and later in the year fed chiefly on the fuchsia. The pollen of the former is red and of the latter blue; hence In the early summer the bird appeared with a red head and was named the red headed honey sucker. But when later In the year It went to the fuchsia Its head was stained blue, and It was called the blue headed honey sucker. Thus for a long time this bird was thought to be two distinct species, and only recently was It found that the red beaded and the blue headed were one and the same and that the real color of the head was blackish brown.