Leucistic House Sparrow, October 2013

Seen in my garden last week. It was feeding and bathing with the other sparrows. I haven't seen it again, so I hope it just moved on rather than becoming breakfast for the sparrowhawk that visits every morning. I haven't noticed a pile of white feathers anywhere.

Well seen. I must have seen many many thousand house sparrows in my life and I have never seen one with abnormal plumage. Whereas they are not very unusual common among blackbirds and the crow family.

Alan

There used to be several 'white' (albino/leucistic?- not sure which) House Sparrows living among the colony in the Giraffe House at London Zoo. I haven't seen one anywhere else though.

A couple of its companions were quite light coloured, while looking like normal sparrows. Family members, perhaps. Judging by the nesting activity in my garden this year, the youngest it could be would be 2 months.

Leucistic House Sparrow,....

I believe I'm right in saying several colour mutations of this species are currently established in captive collections.

Pertinax said:

There used to be several 'white' (albino/leucistic?- not sure which) House Sparrows living among the colony in the Giraffe House at London Zoo. I haven't seen one anywhere else though.

Click to expand...

These days, sadly, even normal coloured house sparrows – once so common - are very much scarcer in London than they used to be………

Incidentally, the only other white sparrow I’ve seen was some years ago in Berlin; I was surprised to see a white individual amongst a group of normal coloured sparrows just outside the Reptile House in the Berlin Tierpark.

Interesting that the other sightings of white sparrows have been at zoos - my garden is quite close to Paignton Zoo, as the sparrow flies. Or perhaps it's because zoos are where we Zoochatters spend a lot of time!