Piebald Blackbird

[mikebidwell]

This one has been visiting our garden for the past twelve months but I've not been able to get a shot of it until the other day. Admittedly it's not as unusual as the one shown in the Daily Mail last week. For anyone interested it was taken using a Nikon D200 with 18-200 VR lens handheld 1/20 sec at f5.6. Considering the miserable weather at the time I was very impressed with the performance of this lens.

[Gandalf]

Mike Interesting. Have never seen one myself, let alone photographed one.
Nice capture. :cool:

[PiratesAhoy!]

I've seen a couple of our blackbirds with the occasional white feather or two, but never one with so much albinism as yours Mike - good photo!

[Jack]

Mike,

Whilst I don't have any of these in my own garden, my mother, who lives in central Somerset, has at least two.
One has a stripey tail(!), where at least two whole feathers are white and the other (that I have seen) looks almost polkadot from a distance with randon white patches mostly on its back and wings.

When I was a kid, years ago back in Somerset, I can remember we had one that was totally white, although I could never get close enough to see if it had pink eyes etc. I also remember we had a white sparrow, which again was all white but twith a few brown marks on its wings.

I'll try and get some shots soon but only have a Nikon Coolpix 5700 which isn't a patch on your D200 (I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy!!).
I was thinking of making the jump to Digital SLR and picking up a used D1X (about £150 on ebay) is this a good starting place or should I go for a newer model with not quite so much spec do you think?

Thanks,

Jack