White (albino) crow

Hi all,

I Over the last few weeks while out walking my dog, I have regularly spotted a pure white crow. I'm guessing it's an albino, and It really is a lovely sight, especially when in flight. It has got me wondering whether this is a common phenomenom, or am I seeing something quite rare?

I'm hoping I've come to the right place to find out.  I have posted some clips of the crow on youtube, so if anyone is interested let me know.

cheers for now

YouFUMS

  • Morning YouFUMS :)

    True albinism, whereby all melanin pigment is missing resulting in a pure white bird with red/pink eyes, is very rare in adult wild birds. This is because those affected usually have severe eyesight problems, and tend not to survive very long once they are independent of parental care. Of course, they are also more conspicuous to predators.

    More commonly seen (though still rare and unusual) is a condition in which the feather pigments are missing, giving white plumage, but the eyes (and therefore vision) are normal. Such birds are still more vulnerable to predators, but for larger species like crows with few natural predators this isn't such a severe handicap.

    Please do post a link to your youtube clips, would love to see the crow :)

  • Once saw a white crow in my early days of birding and wondered what on earth it was,no forum to ask in those days.The local keeper put me right on that one,in faci I learnt a lot from him

  • Is it a condition called Lycistic that means birds get white feathers when they would not usually?

  • should have been Leucistic. And i was wrong.

  • There's some dispute over the correct terminology. Some people (including me!) use leucistic to mean what you describe - abnormal white plumage. The affected bird may be partly or completely white, but has normal eye colour (if it has red/pink eyes it's an albino). Others say that leucistic should be used to describe birds with only partial pigment loss, so their colours are paler than normal but not white.

  • Ahhhh thanx Aiki. I've passed that info on to a few people now and I didnt wanna be misinforming ppl.

  •  Thanx for your replies, folks.

     It's looking like this bird may not be albino, for the reasons pointed out by Aiki. Unfortunately I have not been able to get too close to the crow, and the video images I took were taken at 35x zoom while trying to keep control of my dog :))  Not easy!

    anyhow...here is the link to the video I have posted on YouTube.  I would welcome further comments, and I'll endevour to get some better shots of it over the coming weeks.

     

  • haha looks like its/has seen a ghost!

  • Hi

    Thanks for posting the video for all to see I will leave it for the experts again but I was wondering if it was a Rook rather than a crow. I say this due to a bit of old folklaw which goes somehting like "if you see a single Rook its a Crow and if you see a lot of Crows they are Rooks" and I noticed there was more than one bird.

    There was a noise in the background which I first thought was a steam train but thinking about it, did you have a dog with you that was panting away?

    Regards

    Shane

  • Yes, Shane. That was my dog panting away....It was a very hot day as you can see in the vid.

    I see this bird almost every day now when out exercising the dog. It is quite often all alone in a field, and only occasionally with other crows - Is the collective noun, a 'murder' of crows? I was wondering if the other crows drive it away, although I haven't seen any evidence of this.

    cheers

    Mark