The Strange Case of Pin-tailed Whydahs and Nutmeg Mannikins

The Strange Case of Pin-tailed Whydahs and Nutmeg Mannikins

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FOR A WHILE, I thought there were Black-chinned Sparrows at my feeder.

The very thought may sound ridiculous. "Black-chinned SPARROWS?" you may exclaim. "Why, they don't even occur in suburban backyards, let alone visit feeders!" Well, I was absolutely positive they were BC sparrows because nothing else in my field guide even came close to the strange birds I was seeing.

Then one day, I bought a 4 dollar Kindle guide to California Birds and behold: my amazing, super rare "Black-chinned Sparrows," were actually introduced, common, juvenile Nutmeg Mannikins.

Visit any Petsmart or Petco and you'll find these small, perky mannikins hopping around in a glass case. Apparently, the small amounts released into the wild formed a local, established populations that has grown incredibly fast. The California Ornithological Union (I have NO idea if that exists or not) decided to add it to the official California List a couple years back.

Nutmeg Mannikins are extremely social: There are always found in a flock of 5+ and I have seen them "cuddling" together in a cute little bundle of furry feathers, similar to the huddling behavior of swallows and bee-eaters.

Visting the birdbath! 

Adult Nutmeg Mannikins are very distinctive and beautiful.

Nutmeg Mannikins are not the only exotic birds to have established themselves in California.
What's worse than mistaking a juvenile Nutmeg Mannikin for a Black-chinned Sparrow is mistaking the introduced Pin-tailed Whydah for a Fork-tailed Flycatcher, which actually happens quite often and causes considerable consternation among birders until everyone realizes that some birder guy has mistaken a cat for a tiger, so to speak.

A whole little mob of different-aged mannikins. 

What's so interesting about  Pin-tailed Whydahs? Well, they have a very unique relationship with Nutmeg Mannikins- a similar case is found nowhere else in the world. Pin-tailed Whydahs are nest parasites, like Brown-headed Cowbirds and most worldwide cuckoo species. Rather than build their own nest, they lay their eggs in another bird's nest. You would think that this would be terrible for the native species of California, but in reality, there is NO effect at all because Pin-tailed Whydahs aren't very smart. Whydahs only know how to recognize mannikin nests and parasitize those, because only Nutmeg Mannikins  hail from their native homeland. Every other nest they see, they don't recognize with their tiny brains.

As Nutmeg Mannikin populations grow, it's expected that Pin-tailed Whydah populations will continue to grow for obvious reasons. For now, there are few studies being conducted on this and we don't know much about the actual relation between the two introduced species' population changes-most of this is just a hypothesis. What we do know, is that both populations ARE rising. Recently one birder had a whydah  show up in his yard!

Hope you enjoyed this week's post.

-chiccadee