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American Crows with white wing patches? (1 Viewer)

lvn600

Well-known member
I saw an American Crow today with a little white on the back of its wings and a lot on the underside. I wondered if anyone else has seen crows with white wing patches?
 
Is partial albinism not a fairly regular feature of black birds like crows?

Here's a (Eurasian) Blackbird with a white throat and small white wing patches.
 

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I took a picture of these Fish Crows awhile back. The one on the bottom appears to have a bit of white on its wing. I wasn't sure if it was sunglare or not. But the other crows don't seem to have any.

FishCrows81907.jpg
 
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I looked in Sibley's and it said that American Crows with white wing patches are a rare but regular occurrence.This particular crow had a lot of white under its wings.
 
It is frequent in juvenile Carrion Crows this side of the Atlantic as well. Strangely it is never illustrated or mentioned in field guides, despite the fact that it is quite a high percentage of young birds.

John
 
I used to get excited over the local juvenile crows here which showed large white patches in their wings. One day I got close enough to see that the white was in fact the tube-like sheaths protecting their growing feathers. Is it possible that this what you have seen?

Pete
 
It is frequent in juvenile Carrion Crows this side of the Atlantic as well. Strangely it is never illustrated or mentioned in field guides, despite the fact that it is quite a high percentage of young birds.

John

don't have it to hand but wasn't it shown in the Macmillan Guide to Bird ID?

Rob
 
I used to get excited over the local juvenile crows here which showed large white patches in their wings. One day I got close enough to see that the white was in fact the tube-like sheaths protecting their growing feathers. Is it possible that this what you have seen?

Pete

No, its not just shafts. Some of these birds look like hybrid crow/magpies

John
 
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