Greg Toffic wrote:
>This is a somewhat late response to Dennis Paulson's posting about Ruth
>Sullivan's photo of a partial albino red-winged blackbird. This past
>Monday at Crescent Lake in the Two Rivers Recreation Area just south of
>the Monroe prison farm I saw what has to be the same bird as I saw on June
>7, 1998 and that Hugh Jennings reported from that same location at the end
>of March this year. (SNIP)
>It is indeed a very cool bird. I wonder if it is the same bird that Ruth
>photographed in Olympia on March 11. It looks identical! When I saw the
>bird this past Monday, it was flycatching and I got to see another plumage
>feature that neither Hugh nor I had reported earlier. The axillars and
>underwing coverts were bright white.


In response to Greg's post, I find it hard to believe that it's the same
bird, as the bird in Olympia was on territory over a period of several days
before it was photographed. A territorial male Red-wing is unlikely to fly
from Monroe to Olympia and back to Monroe during a breeding season. It
will be interesting if other people see both of these birds later in the
season, and it would be great if someone could get good photos of the
Monroe bird. As I wrote on the web site, I think this mutation may be
rather common, from the number of similar specimens in museums, and I saw a
similar bird in a winter flock on the Skagit Flats quite a few years
ago--also surely a different bird, as they don't live that long. We should
be spending more time in the marshes!

Dennis

Dennis Paulson, Director phone 253-879-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax 253-879-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416
http://www.ups.edu/biology/museum/museum.html