Expert: Jonathan Wright - 8/18/2005

Question
several weeks ago we came upon a large hawk trying to pick a dead skunk up from the road.  i got within ten feet of it before it finally dropped the skunk and flew into a nearby snag.  tour amazement it was almost entirely white with splotches of reddish brown.  It looks very much like a red tailed hawk but i have never seen one with these colors.  luckily i got some good pictures. can i send you these pictures for your opinion?  thanks, tom pierson

Answer
Dear Tom

Thanks for the e-mail. I'm back at allexperts after looking up information about your hawk. I've also found a few photos in Google images, which you may want to look at.

First of all, you saw a red-tailed hawk. It seems that your hawk shows partial albinism, although there is the chance that it is a Krider's hawk, a pale variety of the red-tailed hawk.

http://gorp.away.com/gorp/activity/birding/expert/exp010425.htm has a question by Bill, from West Virginia. “I saw a bird similar to a red-tailed hawk in all respects except it was bright white! Only its tail had any colour (tail was dark red or brown). Head, back, wings and breast were solid white”.

Sam replied that the bird was an almost complete albino red-tailed hawk. Albinism, or lack of pigment in skin or feathers, is quite common in birds. Sometimes only one or a few feathers are white or almost the entire bird is feathered in white, with just a few darkish or brown feathers. Albinism occurs relatively frequently in red-tails. Sam saw one in winter and his first thought was “white morph gyrfalcon”. As soon as it started to hover and act like a red-tail, he knew what it was.
Complete albinism in birds, when the feathers, skin and eyes are all without pigment, is very rare. In such cases, the eyes are usually red or pink and the legs, feet and bill are white or very pale. It is extremely difficult for such birds to survive in the wild because they tend to stand out as prey, lacking any natural camouflage. Even an albino red-tailed hawk would be much more visible at night and subject to predation by great horned owls.

http://www.freelists.org/archives/tn-bird/12-2004/msg00241.html describes a snow white red-tailed hawk, which was harassed by an American Kestrel), but it had a white tail, normal leg colour and dark eyes. It showed incomplete albinism.

http://www.csc.noaa.gov/acebasin/specgal/rtailed.htm states that albinism has been reported to occur more frequently in this species than in any other bird of prey.

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/programs/AllAboutBirds/AttractingBirds/Challenges/S... states that the red-tailed hawk has a naturally occurring melanistic form (or "morph").

http://www.doorbell.net/lukes/a022699.htm shows some photos of a partially albino red-tailed hawk. There are sopme more pictures if you put ‘albino red-tailed hawk' into Google images.

http://listserv.arizona.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9612d&L=birdchat&F=&S=&P=3095 gives an alternative answer. Some people classify light-morph red-Tailed hawks as Krider's hawks, which are a colour form of red-tailed Hawk that is restricted as a breeder to the northern prairie region and winters to the south of that. You can find information in Wheeler and Clark's new book “A Photographic Guide to North American Raptors”.  

Krider's hawks often have reddish patagial marks. Krider's hawks are really washed-out red-tailed hawkss with much white on the head, back, and wing coverts, pale tails, and reduced contrast of the patagial mark. Adults do not show any dark belly or side markings, have washed out tails of similar pattern to "normal" eastern red-tailed hawks, and very pale heads. Juveniles show just a little dark spotting on the sides and virtually white heads.

The writer says that many eastern red-tailed hawks are very pale as juveniles, but don't approach the Krider's hawks in colour or pattern. They usually have significant belly streaking, dark crown and nape markings, and strong patagial marks. You can see pictures of Krider's hawks by putting ‘Krider's hawk' into Google images.

As you live in the east of the USA, your hawk could be a Krider's hawk, but I think the Google images of ‘albino red-tailed hawks' resemble your photos more than do the Google images of Kreider's hawks. Suffice it to say, your photos show a colour variation of a red-tailed hawk. It shows partial albinism, because the tail is reddish and the legs are yellowish, which wouldn't be the case with a true albino.

I hope that you will continue your interest in wildlife.

All the best

Jonathan