Looks like a gorgeous all white leucistic or albinistic individual to me!
It's not a pure albino, if it were, the bill, legs and eyes would be pink, nice looking bird.
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I agree, but I find the nomenclature confusing, with disagreements between references; and this is not only a problem in English.
Among English-speaking birders the distinction’s increasingly observed (it should be after being beaten into our heads all these years!) at least as far as postings to BF are concerned. It’s among beginning and non-birder posters that the confusion mostly resides. The man-in-the-street, of course, is unlikely to have even heard the term “leucism” while everyone knows “albino”.
I usually use the definition as here.
As said there, "A common misnomer is ‘partial albino’ – this is not possible since albinism affects the whole plumage of a bird, not just part."
Still, you find some birding publications with "partial albino" used as here.
This is the confusion I'm talking about.
It’s only “impossible” because we choose to think of it that way. We could just as easily define “partial albinism” as “complete albinism” minus some key feature (e.g., red eyes or whatever). As always in questions of language, usage is everything, "logic" nothing.
Could be down to one of two things IMHO, in some cases where a book has been written by a keen amateur with no real biological training or, a writer may think that in using words that seem less scientific, a book may appeal to a broader range of people, either is as likely as the other I think.
Whatever the reason, the two are mutually exclusive, as fugl says, it's been discussed here numerous times and I don't think it's that hard a principle to grasp?
It's also correct that the terms 'albino' or 'partial albino' are most often used by non birders or those with less experience. It's a sign of the times, there's never been a better informed generation of birder / amateur naturalist as this.
I suppose, taken in isolation, logically, each white feather is albino so it would naturally follow that 'partial albino' in terms of the whole, could be correct?
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I hoped writing this way would avoid to discuss it again... it seems it didn't succeed :king: