Just seen a white winged crow on Mablethorpe beach in Lincolnshire. I'm wondering how rare this is and any information where it's come from.
I would say the crow in your photos is leucistic.
Leucism is almost another form of albinism, the main difference is the eyes are normal colouring rather than pink or red as with an albino. There is more to leucism. For more information on Leucism, visit the Wikipedia link below or if you want to play safe with web links, copy and paste Leucism Wikipedia into your preferred browser search engine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leucism
regards
John
2013 photos & vids here
eff37 on Flickr
stealthybutnotthatstealthy said:I remember posting about a decade ago re crows with white, esp wing feathers. I observed how frequent, compared to other habitats, coastal crows had white, and speculated on what they were eating or drinking being the cause.
This is likely to be needle and haystack theme, I, and I know at least one other, would like to read that, is there a chance you have a link to the posting, or a copy of the original posting?
I was talking to someone at the local WT reserve yesterday about leucism and whether it is on the rise, or I'm just more aware of it since retirement.
What we both agreed was, it seems to be very commonplace, whether we're more aware or it is on the rise, we're not sure.
stealthybutnotthatstealthy said:My posts got deleted with my profile....... I wasn't disagreeing with leucism or genetics. I've no idea re causes other than one is linked to the other. I posted what I remember posting a decade ago.
That's a shame.
I've been kept up to date with many events that have been occurring whilst I took a sabbatical.
It was myself and John, Cheshire Lad, who were having a chat about leucism in the week and its seemingly increased occurrences.
Mike
Flickr: Peak Rambler