I've seen a similar pattern in crows many times. In all instances that
I've been able to examine closely, the crow had not grown white feathers,
but had had his feathers chewed by parasites. The most common pattern is
a band of "white" in the secondaries, kind of where the white stripe on a
young Golden Eagle's wing is. In flight, the wings look transparent in a
good light, or, more often, simply white. Late summer just before molt
happens is when I see the most of these raggedy crows. I don't know if
crows are more susceptible to feather parasites, or if their feathers make
the damage more apparent than in other species.

My observations may or may not relate to yours - if you observed pure
white feathers on a sitting crow, then certainly it's a partial albino,
and the other post to tweeters (from Vashon Is.) is the only other
instance I've ever heard of an albino crow. But in flight, the "worn"
crows look convincingly white in the wing feathers, and fooled me the
first few times I saw them (over a period of several years).

Chris Hill
Everett, WA
cehill at u.washington.edu


On Wed, 26 Nov 1997, Stan Ray wrote:

> Yesterday evening, I briefly saw what I decided was a gleam of light
> reflected off of a crow's underwings. Then today I saw the crow in full
> daylight. He definitely has pure white secondary feathers in both wings!
> This observation is probably not unheard of, but it sure is new to me.
> Anybody seen the likes. (Crow observed near my home here near Rose Hill in
> Kirkland, WA.
> Stan
>
>
>