birding-aus

Odd Miner, Melbourne

To: Philip Veerman <>
Subject: Odd Miner, Melbourne
From: Russell Woodford <>
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2018 14:25:23 +1100
I got very excited about a fairywren I saw in the Perth hills recently. For a 
while I thought I had the blue form of White-winged Fw in a place they haven’t 
been recorded. A close look at my photos showed it wasn’t a brilliant white 
wing I’d seen but the back - usually rufous or chestnut in  Red-winged Fw. I 
assume that bird, which was associating with a family of Red-winged Fw, was a 
leucistic individual, and had none of the rufous. / chestnut pigmentation 
usually present in the species. 

Russell Woodford


> On 17 Oct 2018, at 8:32 am, Philip Veerman <> wrote:
> 
> Birds of many species are occasionally found with unusual white patches - or 
> actually lack of normal colour. Maybe white is the most common of the 
> possible range of colour variants. No reason to invoke a hybrid idea. The 
> word is leucistic. Lots of internet information on this. Such as this: 
> https://www.birdnote.org/blog/2018/04/why-bird-part-white-leucism
> 
> Philip
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Birding-Aus  On Behalf Of 
> Bill Stent
> Sent: Wednesday, 17 October, 2018 7:41 AM
> To: 
> Subject: [Birding-Aus] Odd Miner, Melbourne
> 
> Walking the dog along Kooning Creek this morning, we came across a weird 
> looking Miner. In a colony of Noisy Miners, it has a head just like a Noisy, 
> including the half black cap, but when it flies, there are large white 
> patches on its upper wings, as though it has white primaries. When folded it 
> shows as a white stripe like a Dusky Woodswallow.
> 
> Just a weird individual, some sort of leukistic (if that’s the right term), 
> or maybe a hybrid? The nearest Yellow-throated is about 500km away, and they 
> don’t have white wings either.
> 
> Bill
> 
> 
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