Do “dwarf” birds exist?

A recent discussion on the ID-Frontiers listserver involved an immature gull photographed in Utah (photo by Norman Jenson here). The consensus (and I agree) is that it is a Western Gull based on plumage and shape. But questions arise from the fact that it looks barely larger than the California Gulls next to it – abnormally small for a Western Gull.

Those of us who didn’t see the bird in life might like to ignore the apparent size as an illusion of the photographs, but the observers report that the bird really did look small. Can it still be a Western Gull? Yes. Since size is the only thing suggesting that it’s not a Western Gull, I think we have to go with the identification as a very small Western Gull. But is it a “dwarf”, or just the small extreme of normal variation?

Terminology
Much of the discussion about this bird and other unusually small individuals has referred to them as “runts”, but technically that is the wrong term. A runt usually means a young animal, still growing (the smallest of a litter of puppies, for example), that is smaller than its siblings. This is common in birds, caused by poor health or poor nutrition, but if runts survive they can grow to full size indistinguishable from their nest-mates. Unusually small adult birds should be called “dwarfs”. ((A runt Common Tern studied by Coulter (1982) was the smallest in the nest, and seemed unlikely to survive, but eventually grew to normal size and fledged, albeit about ten days later than its nest-mates. On the other hand, continued poor nutrition results in birds that never reach full size and remain smaller than normal, as several studies on Snow and Canada Geese have shown.))

Peter Pyle reported on ID-Frontiers that gull expert Larry Spear held the opinion that there is no such thing as a dwarf bird, and that an individual like the Utah gull is just the rarely seen tail end of normal variation in Western Gull. In the same way that full-grown humans under five feet (or over seven feet) tall simply represent the extremes of normal variation.

In humans dwarfism is neither well-defined nor simple. Dwarfism is defined by an arbitrary threshold along the continuum of adult sizes, and over 200 causes of dwarfism have been identified (Wikipedia). It seems likely that birds are similar.

An informative study by Hicks (1934; thanks to Steve Mlodinow for the tip) carefully examined over 10,000 starlings in the hand. Unusually small and large birds that caught the researchers’ attention were measured. In this sample of 10,000 birds there were seven “giant” and six “dwarf” individuals that measured about 10% larger or smaller than the average of “normal” birds measured.

Unfortunately not all 10,000 birds were measured, only about 500 randomly selected “normal” birds were carefully measured, along with the 13 individuals that were strikingly large or small. Only total length measurements are given, but the largest dwarf measured only 9mm (about 5%) smaller than the smallest “normal” female. Furthermore, all of the giant birds were males (the larger sex), and five of the six dwarfs were females. It seems likely that, if all 10,000 individuals had been carefully measured, the data would fill in the relatively small gaps between the normal birds and the dwarf and giant birds.

Another documented case, with direct application to identification, is that of an unusually small Great Crested Flycatcher trapped and collected in New Jersey (Murray, 1971). This individual was immediately suspected of being an Ash-throated Flycatcher based on size, but careful study confirmed it to be a very small Great Crested. Its measurements are over 10% smaller than the average for Great Crested, and smaller than the minimum given by Pyle (1997). It is even a little too small for Ash-throated Flycatcher! In addition, it has a disproportionately short tail, while its wing measurement is just 1mm below the minimum for Ash-throated, its tail measures 9.5mm shorter than the smallest Ash-throated measured by Pyle.

It’s really a semantic question. Documented cases of unusually small birds exist and must be considered when identifying rare species. We could set an arbitrary threshold that categorizes them as “dwarfs” or just consider them the extremes of normal variation. The impact on bird identification is the same either way.

References

Coulter, M.C., 1982. Development of a Runt Common Tern Chick. Journal of Field Ornithology, 53(3), pp.276–279.
Hicks, L.E., 1934. Individual and sexual variations in the European Starling. Bird-Banding, 5(3), pp.103–118.
Murray, B.G., 1971. A Small Great Crested Flycatcher: A Problem in Identification. Bird-Banding, 42(2), pp.119–119.
Pyle, P. et al., 1997. Identification Guide to North American Birds: Columbidae to Ploceidae, Slate Creek Press.

7 thoughts on “Do “dwarf” birds exist?”

  1. Hi,
    Our Labrador retrievers surprised us by bringing us a wild budgie.
    Clearly it was young but could not fly.
    4 months later he is a delightful pet. He has just started making short flights in the last week.
    The vet explained he is a dwarf. Smaller in size but healthy with a natural life expectancy.
    The vet also explained aerodynamically he will only ever be capable of very short flights, hence he would not
    Survive in the wilds of Australia. We are very grateful our dogs found and brought him unharmed to us ( we were out
    For an afternoon at a dry river bed).
    Clearly in my limited opinion, dwarf birds unlike other animals that may be dwarf, would be unable to
    Survive and hence reproduce, making them even more rare).

  2. Hi, David. I think I understand the distinction you’re trying to make here, but I’m not 100% sure. Are you saying dwarfs are genetically predisposed to permanently stay small, while runts are smallish birds early in life that can eventually grow to reach expected averages?

    1. Hi Amar, that’s correct, although reading this post now I can understand your confusion. It would be better if I had just said that the terms runt and dwarf are interchangeable, since we have no way of knowing whether an unusually small bird is that way because of something genetic or environmental (or both). The “runt of the litter” sometimes grows up to be normal size, and sometimes remains unusually small.

  3. In the central valley of California there is a small goose colored just like a Canada Goose or
    “honker” which I was told was a “Brant”. Is that the correct name? Thanks.

  4. We have a very small runt Canadian gosling, whose 3 siblings are growing properly. He has stayed small. They now have pin feathers in their tails and are starting to get their adult coloring. He is still yellow and small, like a couple week old gosling. Will he make it to adulthood?

  5. Our chickadees, (which are small to start with) juncos and nuthatches as well as others are all much smaller than they should be normally found elsewhere. Many adults are even smaller than hummingbirds. Their sizes differ from very tiny to just half the bird’s normal sizes. It is due to some kind of dwarfism the full name escapes me. Lacking sufficient food for generations is responsible. Please tell me the first part of this kind of dwarfism. Is it “secular” dwarfism? I think I’m feeding all the birds for miles around since there’s little for them to eat here in Western Washington State. Please excuse any miss spellings.

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