By: Sudbury
Northern Life Staff
Mar 02, 2016 - 6:00 PM
Sudburian snaps rare bird photo, gets a
'Wow!' from The Birdman
Northern Life reader Linda Couture snapped this photo of a rare sight: A partially albino male pine grosbeak. Photo supplied |
When Linda Couture was watching some
birds feeding in her backyard on March 1, one of them caught her eye.
It was a strange white bird with a yellow beak that appeared to have been splattered with red paint.
"One of them, I have never seen before," she told Northern Life. "I have checked on the Internet and in my bird books, but couldn't find anything on this bird. He looks a lot like a grosbeak, but it has a yellow beak and his body does not have the same colour as a grosbeak ... it was kind of eye catching."
Couture reached out to Chris Blomme, a local ornithologist and Northern Life's bird columnist (you can find a new column from The Birdman every month. Here's his latest.
Originally, Couture thought it may have been some kind of crossed breed, but Blomme said her original assessment that the bird is a grosbeak was correct the one — with one slight difference.
"This is a really neat bird. It is a partial albino male pine grosbeak," Blomme wrote back in response to her query. "The term leucistic (leucism) is often applied. There was a leucistic Canada goose at Lilly Creek for a whole spring one year.
"This is fairly unusual and I have not seen one before in this species."
It was a strange white bird with a yellow beak that appeared to have been splattered with red paint.
"One of them, I have never seen before," she told Northern Life. "I have checked on the Internet and in my bird books, but couldn't find anything on this bird. He looks a lot like a grosbeak, but it has a yellow beak and his body does not have the same colour as a grosbeak ... it was kind of eye catching."
Couture reached out to Chris Blomme, a local ornithologist and Northern Life's bird columnist (you can find a new column from The Birdman every month. Here's his latest.
Originally, Couture thought it may have been some kind of crossed breed, but Blomme said her original assessment that the bird is a grosbeak was correct the one — with one slight difference.
"This is a really neat bird. It is a partial albino male pine grosbeak," Blomme wrote back in response to her query. "The term leucistic (leucism) is often applied. There was a leucistic Canada goose at Lilly Creek for a whole spring one year.
"This is fairly unusual and I have not seen one before in this species."
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