photos © 2006 by Louise Brown

I'm thrilled to report that the banding of the white hummingbird I have been seeing for about a week now was a success. Susan Campbell, an independent hummingbird researcher, affiliated with the NC Museum of Natural Sciences,  came over and set up her cage about 7:45 AM, and after banding the two dominant male "regular" Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, trapped the white one about 10:00. Todd Pusser, a biologist/photographer also came by, getting here minutes after she actually caught it, so the bird (a female, we know now) has been measured, weighed, banded, and had the bejeesus photographed out of her. These are my non-professional photos. You can see she is not a true albino - "leucistic" is the technical term. Her bill is dark, feet not black but not pink, eye black, with a greenish-buffy cast to feathers on tail and head. I got to hold her in my hand before she flew away. It was very exciting!  
                                                                                                                         -Louise Brown

This is my first picture of her - not a very good one but enough to prove I wasn't just seeing things.  She had whizzed by me on several occasions on several different days, enough for me to wonder what I was seeing, but I finally got a good look at her through binoculars and this was the only photo I got before she was trapped. 

To the right is the cage Susan hung the feeder in to trap the hummingbird. She (the bird) is in the top right of it, trying to get away. (Click on the picture for a larger version)

Things we know (per Susan Campbell)
This white bird is:

·          A 1st year bird, hatched in the spring, in the vicinity
·          Is a female because it is larger overall (bill and wing measurements specifically larger than for a male) and its sixth primary (wing feather) is rounded at the tip and uniform in relation to the other primaries
·          Albino/ leucistic hummers are rare, not much is known about them. So this was a good opportunity to collect scientific data (a tail feather was plucked for DNA.)

Survival of Albino/ leucistic hummers is doubtful because:

•  White birds (and other animals) that are not normally white are not camouflaged, thus more obvious to predators

• The white feathers are more brittle

• There have been no reports of white hummers in the spring; meaning they don’t make it back to the breeding grounds if indeed they made it to the wintering grounds. (Optimistically, maybe just nobody saw them!)

•  Lack of pigmentation means less protection from UV rays    (Although I posed this theory, it may not make any real difference in such a short lifespan.)

Susan has been doing research on hummingbirds for the last nine years.  In that time she has banded (approximately) 2000 individuals. Of all those birds she has only banded 5 white ones.

 If you happen to notice hummingbirds in winter, which is not as unusual as one might think, (go ahead and leave that feeder out!!) they are usually western species that have gotten sidetracked, usually immature males. Or if you notice any other unusual hummingbird at any time, contact Susan at:

                   susan@ncaves.com   or (910) 949-3207                                                                                                    -Louise Brown