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#WildWords, birding, birdwatching, blackbird, leucism, leucistic, leucistic blackbird, wild words
Leucistic: Adjective; (of an animal) [or other creature] having whitish fur, plumage, or skin due to a lack of pigment (Oxford Dictionary).
It’s not easy being different as this leucistic black-and-white Blackbird seems to be discovering. I’ve spotted it several times in and around a neighbour’s backyard in recent days, usually sitting alone, looking a little bereft. Once it tried to approach first a male and then a female Blackbird, adopting the submissive posture a young bird would adopt to beg food from its parents, but the other birds totally rejected it and flew off.
I’ve posted about leucistic birds before: a Crow here, and a Jackdaw was the star here.
Poor thing, but I expect it’ll be okay. We had one here a few years ago – not as much white on it but still some, and it ended up with quite a family.
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I’m glad your local bird story had a happy ending, Val. 🙂
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My feeling is that because they do not conform to the norm in appearance, they are treated as outcasts. Don’t humans behave in a similar manner sometimes?
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I think you’re probably right, Joyce. And a friend in the US says she’s seen the same thing happening with leucistic squirrels.
Also, as I had my reading glasses on when I first spotted this out the window, I initially thought it was a magpie – I wonder if the other blackbirds are similarly confused.
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Only if they need to go to Specsavers 😉
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