I’ve been keeping my eye out for an albino deer lately. The ghostly creature has been spotted on a number of occasions but the descriptions have varied from all white to partially white.  To those who have seen it, I tell them to keep a camera handy for the “next time.”  A photo, even a bad one, will go a long way toward solving the mystery.  

  All this leads me to my sighting of a partial albino cowbird the other day. I had my camera ready, but I wasn’t ready and I had to settle for a bad photo as my documentary proof (see above). Allow me to explain myself.

  Earlier in the afternoon, I led a public nature walk to the lotus beds at Lake Erie Metropark. I brought along a pair of waders so that I could wade into the plants and cut a few examples for show and tell.  Unfortunately, my old waders have a pin-hole leak in the left boot which soon let in a refreshing torrent of cold water – immediately soaking my pant leg and sock. 

  I squished my way through the remainder of the program, and the day, before heading home.  As I drove down the road the thought occurred to me that I could take off my wet sock and hang it out of the car window to dry.  As long as I held on tight, the thing would flap around in the wind like a red-neck’s squirrel tail and dry out in no time.

  You might expect me to say that the sock ripped out of my hand at some point and, after turning around to retrieve it, I spotted an albino cowbird standing next to it.  Well, not exactly.  You see, I was flying down the road – left sock in hand and bare footed to match – and something caught my eye.  A white bird flew across the road and landed on a fence to my right. I had just enough time for the sight to register as something unusual before I was able to pull off the road and peer back though the rear window.

  I couldn’t make out what it was, but also couldn’t (or wouldn’t) step out of the car while doing my shoeless Joe Jackson imitation.  The mystery bird flew back across the road before I could get my camera out.  It landed out of sight beyond a big spruce tree in someone’s front yard. I did a 180 and zipped down to where I saw it vanish.  As I turned into what I hoped would be the correct driveway I spotted a small cluster of cowbirds in the grass. Right smack dab in the middle of the group was my white bird. 

  The front door of the house was open and it looked like someone had just parked their truck in the drive. Here I was a stranger with a camera sitting in someone’s driveway.  I expected someone to come walking out at any moment. I should have been able to quickly jump out, take a few quick focused shots, and then take off.  But, no, I was shoeless and would have looked especially odd – even dangerous – had I chosen to get out. I wasn’t ready to explain that I just wanted to take a picture of a white blackbird as the owner’s glance drifted downward to my single bare foot.

  The situation demanded that I take a few quick shots through the windshield before speeding off.  I guess you could call this incident a drive by naturalist shooting. There is a lesson in this affair somewhere, but I’ll leave that deduction to you.

  Now that you know why my picture is so bad (here’s another one) perhaps you can appreciate the subject matter.  At least, in this case, you don’t have to take my word for it. This is a partial albino Brown-headed Cowbird. Such pale creatures, better known as Pie-balds, aren’t nearly as rare as true albinos but are unusual none-the-less. True albinos completely lack the skin pigment known as melanin and are totally white with pink eyes and skin.  Pie-balds are missing this pigment in scattered locations and appear spotty.  Their eyes and skin are mostly dark, or normal, in color.

  Normal male Brown-headed Cowbirds are deep velvety black (see here) while the females are usually an even pale brown hue (see here).  I suspect this individual was a female based on the mellow brown back and inner tail feathers.  

  There is a very good chance that I will not see her again. Nature has a way of weeding out such odd balls. Her coloration will catch the eyes of predators just as it caught mine. Should she survive, however, there is a slim chance that her offspring will express the same sort of partial albinism. The albino trait is recessive, but it does rear up in random generations over time.

  I will make sure that my next pie-bald sighting will be under better circumstances and that I will get you a better shot.