White-winged Crow – new to science?
Birding this morning at The Scrubs produced the interesting sight of a Carrion Crow with white wingbars. When I first saw the bird it was heading low towards me above the grassland. The white on the wing initially startled me. It was only as it flew past me that I suddenly realised that I had a camera – so I started snapping.
In truth, over the years there have been a fair proportion of the crows at The Scrubs that displayed varying degrees of white in their plumage. There was even a ginger individual that frequented the area around the prison for a couple of years.
This was the first bird I had seen with a complete white wingbar and of course, this is no new species but a Carrion Crow with a plumage mutation. But why do crows develop this? And why do I only see these birds in dense urban populations and not in rural districts?
I seem to remember reading it was related to diet, possibly also white bread but I can't remember where I read that.
I think that I need to do some more research into this subject as I wrote this entry cold.
There has been quite a lot of response to it on Twitter.
Hope you're well Alan.
I read that it is due to a poor diet while the feathers are being formed, sometimes the flight feathers can be barred with pale lines, due to an inconsistent food supply 🙂
We get quite a few of those leucistic Carrion Crows around Bute Park in Cardiff. It's a genetic condition, which I suppose will carry for a few generations and as the black genes are dominant will eventually disappear again from a family gene pool.
If you're ever in Cardiff, I can show you around.