At 10:14 PM 8/14/97 -0700, you wrote:
>I saw quite an odd crow yesterday in Yakima. It had two white wing bars,
>with the rest of the bird looking like a regular American Crow. When
>flying, the top side of the wings looked very much like a greater scaup's.
>I realize this crow probably just showed some albinoism but it was so
>uniform that I hoped it was an unusual Asian crow just lost in Yakima. I
>have been assured that all crows are black and only black, except for
albinos.

Here's another one: my dad (not a birder, but somewhat familiar with local
birds,
and earlier when in better health a feeder) swears the neighbor's feeder is
getting
visited by what sounds like a melanistic Stellar's Jay.

Unfortunately, it didn't show up when I was there a few nights ago, the man
who
kept the feeder had been tending his very ill mother for a year or so, and she
died a couple of days before I arrived, so the feeder had no food in it...

Fish stories are always like this, aren't they?

Anyway, are melanistic Stellar's jays known?



- Don Baccus, Portland OR <donb at rational.com>
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