Re: [Maine-birds] Crow with white patch on wings

Many immature Crows show white an various parts of their bodies.    This is pretty common when you start looking at Crows regularly.  If you google 'White feathers on Crows"  you will find out that the pigmentation genes get turned on somehow for white including all white crows...  Looking at some of the close relatives of crows there are white genes that are probably recessive, that play a role in unlikely color morphs.

 

Leucistic birds are found throughout avian taxonomy and is an interesting anomaly to watch our for. 

 

Michael

 

From: Smith, Michael

Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2013 8:37 AM

To: Louis Bevier ; Maine Birds List Serve

Cc: Charlotte Hewson

Subject: RE: [Maine-birds] Crow with white patch on wings

 

Some of the birds around the UMA campus show white…

 

===============================
Michael Smith MS GISP
State GIS Manager, Maine Office of GIS
State of Maine, Office of Information Technology
michael.smith _at_ maine.gov 207-215-5530

Board Member, Maine GeoLibrary
Education Chair, Maine GIS Users Group
State Rep, National States Geographic Information Council


State House Station 145
51 Commerce Drive
Augusta, ME 04333-0145
69^o 47' 58.9"W  44^o 21' 54.8"N

From: maine-birds@googlegroups.com [mailto:maine-birds@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Louis Bevier
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2013 7:56 AM
To: Maine Birds List Serve
Cc: Charlotte Hewson
Subject: Re: [Maine-birds] Crow with white patch on wings

 

Crows can show white patches, especially in the wings. It is a low percentage. Someone who has studied crows extensively is Kevin McGowan at Cornell. He has a FAQs page on crows, and this link will take you to the one on white in crows.

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/crows/whitecrows.htm

Link at the bottom of that page will take you back to the FAQ or main crow page. Kevin's work has become a standard reference on the species (mostly American, eastern populations, but also Fish Crow).

 

Louis Bevier

Fairfield

 

On Mar 26, 2013, at 7:43 AM, Charlotte Hewson <cghewson@gmail.com> wrote:

Has anyone else seen a crow with a white patch on the wings in the Cundys Harbor area? Or are we dreaming? Charlie Hewson

 

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