My interest in birds has peaked again as I noticed, living in the stable, a blackbird (male) who has random white feathers.
I often find him in there.
But the whole white feather in his tail is what caught my attention.
I shall try hard to keep him safe from Pepper and Monster.
Apparently it is quite common for blackbirds to have the odd white feather, but I think this is incredibly special and I have never seen this before (possibly because I wasn’t really looking).
According to the RSPB – “Leucism (abnormal white or pale plumage due to a lack of melanin pigment) can occur in any bird species but does seem to be particularly common in Blackbirds. It is caused by a genetic mutation so it’s not unusual to find several affected birds in the same area, they are probably related.”
So maybe there will be more. We always have some blackbird couples around.
These past few weeks, I have also been trying to photograph the visiting Waxwings with absolutely no success. A friend messaged me that they had a couple so I immediately drove over to see if they were still there.
Success!
Such a pretty little bird and they will over-eat if they possibly can.
So I spent the morning creeping around with my camera, hoping they wouldn’t fly away, which they constantly did.
But my friend had the “Hey-Waxwings-there-are-apples” call on his telephone and he kept playing this over and over again, while I stalked the birds around the outside of the house, using the walls as cover.
According to my research (Google), I think these are “Bohemian Waxwings” that come over from Scandinavia for food – berries and apples.
They are very sociable little birds who like a good argument!
I took this photo for comparison of size.
It was a great morning and I also saw a Blackcap (so I am reliably informed).