New to group!

Hi there, just joined today and am going to do my first birdwatch between 29/31 Jan!!

But saw this unusual bird in my garden this morning! (Kemnay, Aberdeenshire)

Leucistic Blackbird, first time I had seen one! Not a great pic, but can see it quite well! 
just thought I’d share 

  • Welcome to the Forum community, Janie, from down on the Surrey/Hampshire border. Never mind that your photo is a bit blurry; it is wonderful to see and record any bird, much less one so singular as that Blackbird--lovely. I have yet to see a leucistic bird with quite that much white. Best of luck with your BGBW. What is the weather where you are? Our first snow this winter fell yesterday, about 3 inches (in old money!), which, unusually for down here, lasted overnight and is still here today and it is still just 2C here now.
  • Welcome, Janie, from me down south in the Thames Valley.

    Blackbirds seem particularly prone to leucism but I've no idea why.

    Good luck with the BGBW. I usually find that birds disappear as if they know what we are up to. Grinning

  • Hello Janie and welcome from me too in Cheshire. Good luck with your garden birdwatch and hope the blackbird turns up for the count along with other species.
  • Hello Janie, welcome from Caithness, up at the very top of Scotland. An unusual looking leucistic Blackbird. Good luck with the bird watch, you will have to tell us how you get on, hope you get some interesting visitors. As TJ has said they all seem to know we want to count them, so decide to not appear in the hour but do so a short time after we have finish the count!! Hope you enjoy being here, always help at hand.
  • Presumably someone has or will soon start a separate thread for us to enter our counts, should we feel like posting ours. In any event, if/when there is a thread devoted to this year's count, I hope someone will let us know or transfer the link here and elsewhere to a few other threads on the forum. Incidentally, I see no reason why we cannot choose several hours over the 3 days and send the results of one of them in--it is still a count of birds in an hour in the chosen space! Or is that 'cheating'?! I imagine anyone able to do so will choose the hour of the day when they have previously noted there are the most birds in their garden. What do the rest of you do?
  • Hi Ann!

    Weather here is cold, 2degrees at the moment (6.15pm) due to go into minus figures overnight.
    We had snow a couple of weeks ago, you can still see it on the hills around us and roads /pavements are a bit skippy!

    Looking forward to the count though!!

    Janie x
  • First time I’ve seen one, just had to get a pic!!
  • Thanks, Janie. We still have the snow and it is 1C outside here just now (6.20-ish pm). Apparently forecast for us is for rain tomorrow which may do away with the snow if it is a bit warmer.