Leucistic blackbird in Wanganui

[jimmifinn]

Leucistic Blackbird roosting foraging for worms on a fenced lawn in Mosston, Wanganui

2024-05-08 Blackbird Mosston Road 5Z9A0494.JPG (429.51 KiB) Viewed 331 times

As a result of alerts from Michael Szabo on NZ Birders facebook page, I spent several trips around Mosston in Wanganui, looking for a leucistic Blackbird that had been photographed and shared on Facebook.

After several roadies around the Mosston area looking for the pine tree that appeared with low branches in the photo, I had to admit it was a lost cause.

I spoke to some friends, the only people I know who live on Mosston Road, and asked them if they had perhaps seen this white Blackbird. They said " Yes, we see it every couple if days. It is on our place"

Sometimes one just gets lucky. I went out there for a second visit today. It is a very alert and quite wary bird but stayed within reach, only just, of my 400mm lens. It is on private property and some distance from the roadway, so is not the easiest twitch. But it is a little beauty and apparently is often with a conventional Blackbird.

The owner of this property says it has only been present this summer and he thinks it may have come from a nest he found in a shelter planting on his driveway. Unusually for a leucistic Blackbird, it has virtually no black feathers at all, and appears to be wholly white.

Jim Norris

[Paul Gibson]

Again, today I had good views of the whitebird (blackbird) that seems regular in a small area of private land on the outskirts of Whanganui, as Jim describes above. I have seen many partly leucistic blackbirds over the years, but this is the first all-white bird. Jim Norris questions the leg colour, unusual for a blackbird. It has a yellow bill like a male, but no distinct eye-ring like a male. What a beauty, made my day.

_77A4516s.jpg (76.4 KiB) Viewed 244 times

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