A news headline made me sit up in sudden concern last week:
Cardinal with rare abnormality
discovered in central Texas
discovered in central Texas
However, I needn’t have worried. It didn’t refer to yet another sex scandal in the Catholic Church!
According to the Inland Bird Banding Association, the bird shows apparent bilateral gynandromorphism, a rare abnormality that causes it to have female plumage on one side of its body, and male on the other.
Phew . . . (wipes brow to remove beads of sweat) . . . a bird, rather than an ecclesiastical rank, and feathers, not vestments. What a relief, considering my article last week!
Peter
That is truly an oddity.