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alternate plumage

American  

noun

Ornithology.

  1. (of birds having more than one plumage in their cycle of molts) the plumage of the second molt, usually brighter than the basic plumage.

Example Sentences

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“They talk about ‘I think this is a worn alternate plumage of a second year whatever Iceland Gull which really looks a whole lot like a Herring Gull’.

From The Guardian

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.