Hello Devorah (and Tweeters),

Just to let you know that leucistic Adelies have been observed in the
past, and I bet that leucistic individuals are about as common in
penguins as they are in other birds. As part of a research team from
Point Reyes Bird Observatory in the 1970s, we observed leucistic
Adelies at the Cape Crozier colony (about 350,000 birds then),
including a very light tannish adult with pinkish-orange bill and
feet, but dark eyes, that looked just like the one in your blog's
photo. I remember our comment at the time was something like "Easy
on the lipstick, Matilda!" because its pink bill really stood out
compared with the other birds that had black feathers covering most
of their orangey bills. It was an adult, acting like a female, but
it was somewhat shunned by the other birds early in the breeding
season, who seemed to treat it like a weirdo and chased it off. We
also observed at least one leucistic chick that was similarly pale
tan where it should have been dark gray. There were some very
distinct partial albinos -- one adult penguin was the usual black and
white, except it had a perfect circle of white feathers sticking out
of its black crown, like an Indian headdress. It was sitting on
eggs, so it's uniqueness apparently didn't hold it back from finding
a mate. We named it "Bigwig."

Thanks for your great blog - I envy your enthusiasm and writing time!

Bob Boekelheide
Sequim


From: Devorah Bennu <birdologist at yahoo.com>
Date: January 8, 2008 12:19:24 PM PST
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Subject: [Tweeters] Picture of unique leucistic Adelie penguin plus
RWBB in Central Park story (links)


Hello Tweeties,

I just wanted to let you know about an amazing (and
probably the first ever) adult leucistic Adelie
penguin photographed by Australian biologists in
Antarctica;

http://scienceblogs.com/grrlscientist/2008/01/white_adelie_penguin.php

I also wanted to let yoiu know that Bob Levy's
photoessay of red-winged blackbirds is available for
you to see -- it appears daily as the "image of the
day". This photoessay began three days ago, but due to
an email glitch, I didn't receive his accompanying
essay until this morning. Oops. So his interesting and
amusing essay is appearing in two parts, starting
today (today's link);

http://scienceblogs.com/grrlscientist/2008/01/
dramatis_personae_the_nest_bus.php

This essay has never been published anywhere else, so
you are all getting a sneak peek at what possibly
might be future book of his -- ya never know!

Devorah
GrrlScientist
Central Park NYC

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