Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!unmvax!nmtsun!john
From: john@nmtsun.nmt.edu (John Shipman)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Re: What is this bird??
Summary: Albinism is not all that rare
Message-ID: <3192@nmtsun.nmt.edu>
Date: 19 Sep 89 22:26:22 GMT
References: <3791@helios.ee.lbl.gov> <48214@oliveb.olivetti.com>
Reply-To: john@nmtsun.nmt.edu (John Shipman)
Distribution: na
Organization: Zoological Data Processing
Lines: 36

Michael Mammoser (mjm@oliven.olivetti.com) writes:
+---
| I wouldn't so quickly rule out an albino. Albinism occurs
| in varying degrees from patches of white feathers scattered
| around the body to a totally white bird with the corresponding
| lack of pigment in the eyes and skin.
+---

Indeed, I've seen several albinos in my 15 years of serious
birdwatching.  For example, a Sooty Shearwater I saw on a
Monterey Bay pelagic trip had big white blotches all over
its body, as if someone had dabbed it with a white shoe
polish applicator.  A Northern Mockingbird I saw in New
Mexico had an all-white tail but was otherwise normal.  And
a gull I saw at the flood basin in Palo Alto was all-white;
the consensus of the authorities that saw my picture was
that it was an albino California Gull.

Be careful, though!  The redoubtable G. Victor Morejohn was
collecting shearwater specimens on Monterey Bay a few years
back and got one that had an all-white head.  He figured it
was an albino something-or-other and duly sent it off to
Roxie Laybourne at the Smithsonian (the same woman who gets
all the criminal cases involving feather identification) and
in a few months he got back word that he had the first
documented North American record of Streaked Shearwater.

(-:  It helps to have a complete collection of  :-)
(-:  all the field guides in the entire world.  :-)

While we're on the subject of nasty field identification
problems, how about hybrids?  The Christmas Bird Counts
from the northern Pacific coast in the last few years
often list more Glaucous-winged x Western Gulls than
either of the unhybridized species.  How are they
calling this form?