r/Ornithology • u/Exact-Back493 • 1d ago

Question Leucistic Red-tailed Hawk (soCal)

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I was not familiar with Leucism when I first spotted this beauty! How common are Leucistic red-tails?

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5

u/Ace-of-Wolves 19h ago

I'm not sure how common they are, off the top of my head.

Researched it and here's what I found:

"According to Cornell Lab of Ornithology Project Feeder Natch study participants, about one in 30,000 birds have abnormal plumage, with 80% of those being leucistic and only 3% true albino."

Give that there's about 3,100,000 RTWs in North America.

How do we math this... Uh, does that mean we do 3,100,000 ÷ 30,000 = 103.33 individuals with abnormal plumage? 80% of that would be 103.33 x 0.8 = 82.6 leucistic individuals & 103.33 x 0.03 = 3.09 albino individuals.

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u/Exact-Back493 11h ago

Appreciate the well calculated answer! 🏆 very interesting

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u/cbeagle 12h ago

Amazing!! Never seen anything like it. What a cool sighting!

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u/Exact-Back493 11h ago

So cool! I feel honored that I get to see her all the time on my bike ride to work! She has a partner that comes and joins her to do some mousing :) have captured some cool videos as well!

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u/cbeagle 1h ago

Awesome!! 😃

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u/Exact-Back493 11h ago edited 6h ago

Could be a male…thoughts?

1

u/Kevin-kmo_123 10h ago

I have never seen 1 before