You are browsing the archives of leucistic.

This post comes by way of an assignment. After seeing an albino squirrel in a Redgannet post, The Management wrote to me suggesting that they would like one of those. Now perhaps the word “suggesting” makes it sound like I have a choice and that would be true in the same way that I have [...]

I am not an ornithologist but this albino finch got my attention.  I suspect that it is an incomplete albino since there is some pigmentation near the face, beak, and feet.  I suspect that this finch belongs to the Woodpecker family from the shape of the beak but I welcome any other comments. I first [...]

As a native New Yorker, I’ve seen my share of squirrels. Our standard Sciuridae is the Eastern Gray Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) and while most of these rambunctious rodents are indeed gray, they sometimes come in other flavors. The Bronx was beset by hordes of Black Squirrels, melanistic members of this common species. So black squirrels [...]

The typical woodpecker, with its coloration of black, white, and red, is ingrained into our brains as birders.  We all have our familiar species and we all know our local woodpeckers well enough that a quick glimpse is often all we need to identify them.  Because many of our common woodpeckers are such a regular [...]

A recent visit to Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge’s East Pond was rewarding in both number and variety of waterfowl, but none drew my attention like one particular Ruddy Duck.  The little stiff-tails are almost year-round at Jamaica Bay though almost all leave to breed in the summer and in the depths of winter, when the [...]