Pister replied on 03/03/2015 09:33
Posted on 03/03/2015 09:33
I refer to an article by Patricia Hewitt in a recent Caravan Club Magazine (P122) asking members if they could identify "the mystery bird" - a daily visitor to the Isle of Wight's Southland Club site. A friend of mine, a keen golfer and bird enthusiast suggested the following:
"... something quite similar to this was seen on the Malvern Hills a few years ago and it caused the same confusion. There is a bird called a Ring Ouzel which is a similar size to a blackbird but its whitish markings are not like this one. With no knowledge of possible foreign birds in passage between countries, I found it difficult to say who might be resting on our shores for a day or two before moving on to their proper territory. However as we occasionally see ‘albino’ varieties of our common garden and hedgerow birds, this could be simply an ‘albino’ blackbird. In practice albinos tend not to live long because it seems to be the nature of the beast that their families don’t like the look of them and they get predated fairly quickly. Nature can be quite cruel sometimes.
My conclusion would be an albino blackbird and the suggestion that it was bigger than a blackbird could be taken with a pinch of salt because it is very difficult to measure birds at a distance unless it was actually standing by a blackbird at the time!..."
I hope this helps...
Pister