Unusual bird
This one wouldn’t look good on a Christmas card. My husband spotted this unusual bird in our garden in August.
We were not sure if it was an escaped pet, or an albino of some description, so we sent off a photograph to the Northumberland Wildlife Trust.
Kevin O’Hara of the Conservation Department sent us this reply, ‘The bird looks like a robin but an unusual one with what is called leucism, which is a reduction in the pigments, it is not an albino as unlike albinism, it is caused by a reduction in all types of skin pigment, not just melanin. The opposite condition produces black panthers.’
Vivienne Dalgliesh
