Sorry for the poor quality of the photo below taken at an angle through window glass with a pocket camera of a bird about forty feet away: Black-capped Chickadee with extremely light back, wing coverts and secondaries. Feathers are adult, not down, not shortened. Head feathers, primaries and tail dark like a normal chickadee. The bird flew okay but did shake frequently (particularly the back half of its body) as it ate seeds. It was puffed up against the cold, but that was not the only thing making its back feathers appear so light; they actually were extremely light, some almost white. Comments encouraged. Thanks!
- Ric
4 comments:
Sounds like it could be a case of leucism. Interesting find for sure!
It looks like it is really really cold...
... is that some kind of snide California quip? ;-)
Chace, now I know who you are! Nice birding with you Saturday in Allegan, and thanks for ID-ing those vocalizations of the redpolls! I'd also like your email address if you'd care to send that to me: .
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