Albino Pheasant Photographed in Oxfordshire
This is a bird in several million.
Clearly, from its shape, it's a pheasant, but normally they don't come
in white.
Most of the time it keeps out of sight in hedgerows and fields south
Oxfordshire's Vale of White Horse.
But it did emerge long enough for bird photographer George Reszeter,
who lives in the area, to take this picture.
A typical female pheasant is pale brown with darker mottling, much
less eye-catching than the larger male with a dark green head and
neck, with red facial wattles and a chestnut body.
This one, due to some genetic legacy, is an albino, the almost
completely white plumage and pale eye irises, bill, legs and feet
resulting from an absence of pigments.
Now probably approaching its first birthday, it's also a great
survivor. Its distinctive colouring makes it an easy target for predators.
Britain's wild breeding population of pheasants is in excess of 7m and
each summer an estimated 25m specially-bred young are released to fuel
the shooting industry.
The Oxfordshire albino may even be unique among that large number - a
possibility not ruled out completely by Dr Andrew Hoodless, a Game and
Wildlife Conservation Trust scientist, who said: "This is extremely
rare - I've certainly never seen an albino pheasant."
He explained they occur much less frequently than melanistic
pheasants, which are darker than normal due to an excess of the
pigment melanin, and leucistic pheasants, which are paler as a result
of diluted pigmentation.
"That's because, being white, they're more obvious to predators than
melanistic or leucistic birds. Some albinos have vision or hearing
impairments also, further limiting their survival chances.
"The reported wary behaviour of the Oxfordshire bird may indicate why
it has escaped predation so far."
Daily Telegraph: April 2008
