The Great White Wonder

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This gallery contains 2 photos. The brown morph rock pigeon (which appears tinted as pink) at Reifel may have eluded me, but this lovely, showstopping leucistic Rock Dove at Burnaby Lake/Piper Spit took my breath away. It did a fair amount of foraging and flying with an unusually large flock of its normally-pigmented fellows.

The Peace Dove of Burnaby Lake

Perhaps, by virtue of the attention and food that was being lavished on the account of its pure white plumage, this specimen seemed to be inordinately aware of its distinctiveness — and “greeted” me before I had even reached the boardwalk of the spit. It followed various other photographers around, too. Quite entertaining to watch! Photographed on March 21.

The Peace Dove of Burnaby Lake

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24 thoughts on “The Great White Wonder”

  4. I often get leucistic and albino specimens mixed up when they are this white. 🙂 This one does seem to want to pose for you to show off!

    Oh, if only we’d known about the brown morph at Reifel we might have gone on this last visit to Vancouver. We’d not been to Reifel in a few years (probably because my older son is more interested in the mountain species).

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    • if by mountain species you mean Band-Tailed Pigeons, I would love to see those up close. I have seen Band-Tails at Colony Farm, but only from far, far away.

      I would, too, except thank goodness for those red eyes in the albinos! 🙂 I had a (partially) leucistic mallard hen do that for me too earlier this … it seemed to recognize that I was fixated by its colours, and was playing up to my lens for quite a few minutes. 🙂

      I met two brown morphs at Reifel not long after running into this leucistic specimen! 🙂

      but what is even odder is that I ran into a breeding pair of rock pigeons at Stanley Park last month … the male was white with black spots, and the female a brown morph. I thought that discovering two colour mutations of rock pigeons at the same time was rather interesting. After walking the length of Lost Lagoon, I discovered that EVERY breeding pair of rock pigeons had these colours–the male suitors were white with black spots, and the females brown morphs!! 😀

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  10. Pingback: Love Those Doves! | W.H. SIM PHOTOGRAPHY

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