white pheasant

Question

RICH5320 commented about a pure white pheasant in his garden and someone replied that no such thing existed. I must disagree with this because a pure white pheasant arrived in our garden three days ago and is still there. It is still there today 23/02/11 Yesterday it was associating whth a normal female pheasant and the two were being stalked by our resident male pheasant. 
 It seems therefore that there are at least two pure white pheasants unless the one in RICH5320's garden has moved to our garden. 
 They may be albinos but they are definately pure white pheasants. Anyone else seen one?

aiki · Accepted Answer

You can get pure white examples of any bird species - some species do seem more prone to it than others but there's no reason why any particular species could not have the genetic mutation or mutations that cause complete feather pigment loss. Some pure white birds may be true albinos (with red/pink eyes) but among adult birds at least, individuals with all-white plumage but normal eye colour are more common. This is because true albinos usually have visual defects that seriously hamper their survival once they are living independently.