Pat Gaines photographed a speckled one in Berthoud, Colorado this winter (above) and an all-white bird in North Denver in 2010 (below). Sometimes leucistic red-tails are spotted brown, sometimes they’re entirely white. The whiteness varies from hawk to hawk and even from year to year. The condition is rare but red-tails are our most common hawk so it’s not surprising to find it in a numerous population. “Leucism is a condition in which there is partial loss of pigmentation in an animal resulting in white, pale, or patchy coloration of the skin, hair, feathers, scales or cuticle, but not the eyes.” ( quoted from Wikipedia). What hawk is this? In nearly every case it’s a leucistic red-tailed hawk. In over 100 years only 41 gyrfalcons were reported statewide (see *1 below).Īnd yet we still see an occasional rare white raptor, even in the summer. In most years snowies don’t come to the Pittsburgh area at all (this year is an exception) and gyrfalcons are never here. Snowy owls and gyrfalcons only visit Pennsylvania in late fall or winter.
Both species are rare and neither is here in spring or summer. Have you ever seen a distant white raptor and hoped it was a snowy owl or gyrfalcon? I have, but I’m usually wrong. Leucistic red-tailed hawk near Berthoud, Colorado, 2017 (photo by Pat Gaines via Flickr)
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