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Leucistic or Pale-morph Goshawk? China (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter xuky.summer
- Start date
Grahame Walbridge
Well-known member
Hi xuky,
Firstly, what a smart looking bird! IMO a leucistic juvenile Northern Goshawk. I should imagine a very rare encounter in the wild.
Here is a recent example of a leucistic Eurasian Sparrowhawk from the UK.
https://twitter.com/avalonwildlife/status/656451855967498240
Grahame
Firstly, what a smart looking bird! IMO a leucistic juvenile Northern Goshawk. I should imagine a very rare encounter in the wild.
Here is a recent example of a leucistic Eurasian Sparrowhawk from the UK.
https://twitter.com/avalonwildlife/status/656451855967498240
Grahame
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birdmeister
Well-known member
That is definitely leucistic. Great bird!
xuky.summer
Well-known member
Thank you!
Do you have any information about pale-morph Goshawk ? I saw "Raptors of the World" said albidus and ]buteoides] would appear pale-morph individuals, but I have never seen any picture.
Do you have any information about pale-morph Goshawk ? I saw "Raptors of the World" said albidus and ]buteoides] would appear pale-morph individuals, but I have never seen any picture.
xuky.summer
Well-known member
Thank you Tom.
Looks hard to find the difference between leucistic and pale-morph.:t:
Perhaps the so-called pale-morph albidus Goshawk is just a leucistic?
Looks hard to find the difference between leucistic and pale-morph.:t:
Perhaps the so-called pale-morph albidus Goshawk is just a leucistic?
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stevethehydra
Well-known member
I'd never heard of a pale morph of (Northern) Goshawk before (and when googling "pale morph goshawk" nearly everything that comes up is about the Australian Grey/White Goshawk), but I think there isn't necessarily any real distinction between something being "pale morph" and "leucistic", especially given that the definition of "leucistic" used nowadays is so broad (seemingly meaning "anything paler than typical for the species that isn't fully albino") - I guess the distinction is that if enough pale/"leucistic" individuals occur in a (sub)species and their appearance is consistent enough then it makes sense to start calling it a "morph"? (similarly with "dark morph" and "melanistic" in e.g. egrets...)
Googling "albidus goshawk" brought up about equal numbers of photos of captive birds more or less like this and fairly normal looking (if a bit paler than typical Western European) Northern Goshawks - so it looks to me like the subspecies A. g. albidus is perhaps more prone to leucistic individuals than others, but "normal" albidus still looks more like a typical Goshawk in plumage. (Perhaps breeders/falconers are (mis)using the term "albidus" for leucistic birds because its Latin root suggests white/pale?)
Regardless, this is a beautiful bird - almost looks like a white morph Gyrfalcon with an Accipiter head and wings! I can see why birds like it are prized by falconers...
Googling "albidus goshawk" brought up about equal numbers of photos of captive birds more or less like this and fairly normal looking (if a bit paler than typical Western European) Northern Goshawks - so it looks to me like the subspecies A. g. albidus is perhaps more prone to leucistic individuals than others, but "normal" albidus still looks more like a typical Goshawk in plumage. (Perhaps breeders/falconers are (mis)using the term "albidus" for leucistic birds because its Latin root suggests white/pale?)
Regardless, this is a beautiful bird - almost looks like a white morph Gyrfalcon with an Accipiter head and wings! I can see why birds like it are prized by falconers...
My general knowledge of the different northern and eastern subsecies of the Goshawk was confirmed when after reading this thread I felt propelled to look deeper into the matter.
The information given in the IMO best bird book of the world, Handbook of the Birds of the World, neatly demonstrates the fact that there indeed is a distinct colour morph of the subspecies albidus from Northeastern Siberia, which you could argue is leucistic of a sort (on the other hand we don't usually label pale males of Ruff in breeding plumage leucistic).
Pale/white morph is what I prefer to call this attractive Gos.
In the following link to a falconry forum I found what wasn't mentioned in H.B.B.W namely how often this white morph appears in the populations.
My gut feeling is that the following figures are correct (scroll down to the post from SSL 17-04 2007 10.25 AM), but if anybody has a more thorough knowledge please chime in with corrections.
Interesting, and new to me, was the fact(?) that the Finnish/Russian/Siberian buteoides population also has a white morph which makes up 5% of the birds.
Of the albidus population of Notheastern Siberia the ratio of white birds is a whopping 50%!
According to the info white birds in China are migrating buteoides (juvenile Goshawks are of course much more prone to undertake longer migrations).
And white birds in Japan are migrating albidus.
That should make your bird a (scarce) white morph of buteoides which makes sense in that it doesn't at all look like the white morph albidus depicted on plate 14 in HBBW and neither like any photos and carcasses I have seen from falconers of alledged albidus Goshawks.
Buteoides is of course highly interesting for birdwatchers in Scandinavia and northwestern Europe since juveniles are regularly seen in the winter season, and contrary to the largely sedentary adult birds are identifiable in the field because of their variegated/mottled wingcoverts and secondaries with much whitish-cream in evidence.
What I'm getting at is the (remote) possibility to see one these stunning, ghostly white birds as far to the southwest as Denmark or neighbouring countries, although the 5% mentioned probably don't apply to the far western chunk of the buteoides population where 'our' vagrants come from.
Peter
www.falconryforum.co.uk/archive/index.php/t-27777.html
The information given in the IMO best bird book of the world, Handbook of the Birds of the World, neatly demonstrates the fact that there indeed is a distinct colour morph of the subspecies albidus from Northeastern Siberia, which you could argue is leucistic of a sort (on the other hand we don't usually label pale males of Ruff in breeding plumage leucistic).
Pale/white morph is what I prefer to call this attractive Gos.
In the following link to a falconry forum I found what wasn't mentioned in H.B.B.W namely how often this white morph appears in the populations.
My gut feeling is that the following figures are correct (scroll down to the post from SSL 17-04 2007 10.25 AM), but if anybody has a more thorough knowledge please chime in with corrections.
Interesting, and new to me, was the fact(?) that the Finnish/Russian/Siberian buteoides population also has a white morph which makes up 5% of the birds.
Of the albidus population of Notheastern Siberia the ratio of white birds is a whopping 50%!
According to the info white birds in China are migrating buteoides (juvenile Goshawks are of course much more prone to undertake longer migrations).
And white birds in Japan are migrating albidus.
That should make your bird a (scarce) white morph of buteoides which makes sense in that it doesn't at all look like the white morph albidus depicted on plate 14 in HBBW and neither like any photos and carcasses I have seen from falconers of alledged albidus Goshawks.
Buteoides is of course highly interesting for birdwatchers in Scandinavia and northwestern Europe since juveniles are regularly seen in the winter season, and contrary to the largely sedentary adult birds are identifiable in the field because of their variegated/mottled wingcoverts and secondaries with much whitish-cream in evidence.
What I'm getting at is the (remote) possibility to see one these stunning, ghostly white birds as far to the southwest as Denmark or neighbouring countries, although the 5% mentioned probably don't apply to the far western chunk of the buteoides population where 'our' vagrants come from.
Peter
www.falconryforum.co.uk/archive/index.php/t-27777.html
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xuky.summer
Well-known member
Thank you very much for your help, learned a lot ！
Bryon Wright
Well-known member
Hi,
So did I. I think this morph although not as famous as the cranes does have a strong historical cultural link in Oriental Printmaking going back hundreds of years!
So did I. I think this morph although not as famous as the cranes does have a strong historical cultural link in Oriental Printmaking going back hundreds of years!
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