Scozmo's Photery

A few weeks back a nearby neighbour told me she’d seen a white bird coming into her garden, she described it to me and I suggested it could be a leucistic Blackbird, maybe even a Chaffinch, we used to have a leucistic Blackbird in our local area that would drop into the garden now and again.

So what is leucism and what does it mean first of all?

Bird Leucism from Avian Report and here’s a link to a selection of images of leucistic birds.

That’s the bird above, it would come into the garden sometimes and I saw it between 2020 and 2022, we moved away in 2022. I add the dates because it is often said that these birds may not live as long as the standard coloured birds, they may be picked on by others or predated easily because of their colouring.

I was once out on an early morning explore / walk / photo session in an estuary on Anglesey when I spotted a pre white bird in a hedge, a short glimpse and it was gone but I’m pretty certain it was a pure white Blackbird. never saw it again although we were only there for a weekend.

Fast forward to Thursday, October 9th and we were passing the charity shop in town, where this lady volunteers and she waved frantically through the window for me to come in.

Scrolling on her phone, she triumphantly showed me a couple of phone pics of a pure white Chaffinch feeding in her garden. No doubt it was a Chaffinch, a male, I think judging by the face markings so, there began my need to stalk her garden and get some shots of my own 🙂

She actually lives at the end of our lane so it was on several of my patch walk routes and gave me a reason to walk further than I have been lately.

I walked down on three days running this week and on the first day, as I left the road and walked onto their property I saw it! It had been in the trees lining the road but flew over my head and disappeared into the wood at the back of their garden. Believe me when I say it is pure white, it cannot be mistaken for any standard small bird in this country but, that day, although I saw it a few times, I never got the chance of any shots.

I saw it again the next day, briefly but again, no photographs. I have now lost count of whether I went down twice or three times (age) but I decided to go down earlier today and set off just after 10 am, I know, that’s not early but, I have chores to do!!!! 😉

I walked down, stopping to feed the tiny horde at the old Oak tree, found my spot at the rear of their garden and settled in to watch and wait.

There’s great activity down there; Coal, Great, Long-tailed & Blue Tits, Chaffinch, Robin, Blackbirds, Siskin, Nuthatch, Redpoll, Redwing & Fieldfare, probably just arrived here and Merlin picked up Crossbills and today, Hawfinch!!!! Now I don’t always trust what Merlin offers up so I’ll keep my fingers crossed for Hawfinch, I really hope there are and Crossbills, well, we hear them from time to time and there’s been a big influx into the country in other areas so, I’ll wait and see. I love both of those birds.

Amid all that excitement, I turned away from the garden, looking into a tree that stands between the woods and the garden and………

It shot into the garden from there and disappeared again!!!!! Typical, it’s only in the editing of that shot that I can see a pale face marking, almost enough to confirm Chaffinch.

At last, one shot! 🙂

My head was now on a swivel, trying to keep an eye out for the white finch while being buzzed by Coal Tits, Blue Tits, Chaffinches and the odd Nuthatch. The Redwing and Fieldfare are new arrivals so I was also looking out for any possible photo-ops of them, they’re VERY shy birds but, eventually, behind me!

A mere glimpse but, as you can see, that is more than enough to ID this bird, pure white so I started firing off shots.

Several blurred shots of a white bird bum later …

I’ve deliberately not cropped those shots closer to show it as the lens was seeing it.

And that was it, slipped between the branches, gone. 😦

Not the shots I really want but, ID shots and my evidence that it exists and is living fine with all the other birds down there.

I will, of course, be going back for more, better 🙂

Addendum – thought it may be best to add a couple of shots of standard Chaffinch? 🙂

October 2025