Avian blood

Blood smear from a bird showing the prolific nucleated red blood cells and a variety of white blood cells. The small, compact, purple-stained cell is a thrombocyte, the larger pinky purple cell is a heterophil and the large purple cell is likely to be a basophil. Bird red blood cells differ from mammalian red blood cells by retaining their nuclei. The sample has been stained with haemotoxylin (purple) and eosin (pink)