For some reason amelanic, leucistic, piebald…. Whatever you want to call them, Black-vented Shearwaters are frequent. Any time you have a good number to look through, you will find one or more. In my experience it is the species that I have seen which has seemingly the highest proportion of birds with white feathers. The caveat is that some birds you never get to see in numbers, so you really do not know, but of those you do get to see in numbers, this one wins out. The question is why?
Note that while you see this type of thing in Sooty Shearwaters once in a while, the proportion is way, way less.
From: <mbbirds...> <mbbirds...> On Behalf Of Ryan Phillips
Sent: Tuesday, October 6, 2026 10:52 PM
To: Pete Sole <pete...>; MBB <mbbirds...>
Subject: Re: [MBBIRDS] Leucistic Black-vented Shearwater?
On Tue, Oct 6, 2026, 7:46 PM 'Pete Sole' via mbbirds <mbbirds...> <mailto:<mbbirds...> > wrote:
Hi birders,
Reviewing my bird images from the SC lighthouse today, I came across a
photo with what looks like a LEUCISTIC BLACK-VENTED SHEARWATER. Can't
say I've seen one of these before. Here is a crop of the frame in
question, with a red arrow pointing to the interesting bird, flying
below and to the left of the elegant tern:
