[texbirds] Black Skimmer with white tipped outer primary.
- From: MBB22222@xxxxxxx
- To: texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2013 02:55:38 -0400 (EDT)
http://www.pbase.com/image/149666010
Normally I would not pay too much attention to case like this; cause is
most likely not genetic, but cases of this kind feather discolorations seem
to be extremely rare in skimmers. I never saw BLSK with unnatural, even
partially, white feather nor I could find one searching the internet (including
search for albino and leucistic individuals, all negative so far) . One of
the causes of white or partially white feathers in some corvids is poor
nutrition (e.g. junk food) but as skimmers are feeding almost exclusively on
fishes this hardly could make a case. This particular primary feather (P7
on left wing) appears to be not damaged but, interestingly, was stunted a
little bit in growth and the feather did not reach the full length (feather
was molted not long time ago as P9, not visible in this photo, is about to
reach full length soon).
I know that it will be impossible to nail exact cause in this case but
perhaps somebody who is/was breeding and raising a lot of birds witnessed
similar cases would share his/her observations.
On the other hand I observed several grackles with single white/partial
white feather and never even bothered to process these photos. So only what
make it special to me is that I found a skimmer with one.
Mark B Bartosik
Houston, Texas
http://www.pbase.com/mbb/from_the_field
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- » [texbirds] Black Skimmer with white tipped outer primary. - MBB22222
