Look at Roger Tory Peterson’s earliest field guides (I have a second edition, 28th printing, 62 years old). His warbler illustrations, among others, place male birds foremost, in front of females, the former partially overlapping the latter.” https://www.startribune.com/sexism-birding-guide-books-studies-plumage-song/600318438/
Tag Archives: birding
“Piland and her colleagues found that since 1950, 183 newly identified birds have been given eponyms, and although 96 percent of these species live in the global South, 68 percent of their names honor people from the global North.”
“Flipping through the book my eyes fell on the Black-throated Blue Warbler. The name is an accurate description of the male bird. It is useless for the female, who has no black throat or blue feathers. She looks like an entirely different species.”
“Female birds sing! Our need to declare that fact so emphatically matters because it reflects historical biases and the constant adjustments of the scientific consensus as new facts are available and new voices are added to the conversation. “
“Experiments conducted by the researchers suggested that the flashy male-like garb helped the females avoid aggressive male behaviours during feeding, such as pecking and body slamming.”
“when they looked at acts of aggression between the stuffed and real hummingbirds, the researchers found that stuffed drab females were often attacked more than the stuffed flashy females.” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/26/female-hummingbirds-mimic-males-to-avoid-attacks-study-suggests
“Indeed, female bird ID tips are often not even included in field guides. As a result, female birds are misunderstood and underrepresented both in census counts and scientific studies, which can have serious repercussions.”
“There’s an Avian Gender Gap and #FemaleBirdDay Is Out to Change That” https://news.wttw.com/2021/05/29/there-s-avian-gender-gap-and-femalebirdday-out-change
OpenSexism 