Last December we had a "white hawk", not a pure white hawk (except for his belly) but his wing/tail feathers had muted coloring. He was so large, too! I haven't seen him this year.
I have a short video but it has to be youtube or vimeo and I'm too lazy to do it right now.
I'd love to see the video.
A white/pale morph is fairly common in Red Tailed hawks. Not common in the population, just the morph occurs more often in Red Tails than in other species. I think. I've seen several white Red Tails in falconry situations.
My favorite bird is the white morph of a Gyr falcon. I've seen quite a few in Saudi Arabia at the Fahad bin Sultan Falcon Center in Riyadh. They are absolutely stunning. Snow white with a beautiful black diamond pattern on their backs, with the feathers delicately laced in white. A female white morph Gyr falcon will be worth upwards of $500,000, maybe more now.
I think the white bird in the bottom left with her wings extended is a Gyr falcon. You can see some dark morphs in the very back row of falcons.
The first time I met my dear friend Jamie Samour was when I walked into that very waiting room with a very sick African Grey parrot (toxic shock from a blocked crop). Boy, did I feel out of place! I walked into a room full of Saudi falconers sitting around on the floor on cushions, chatting about their falcons, all so proud of their birds, and then me, a woman without a head covering during Ramadan walking in on them! I must have caused bit of a stir. Almost immediately, Jaime walked out from the crowd and ushered me into the back where he worked valiantly trying to save my parrot. We became very good friends. I would visit him at the clinic and he would give me lectures on avian medicine or the natural history of birds of prey and falcons in particular. I would tour his clinic and see the interesting patients he had in that week.
I learned that wars, one between two nuclear powers, have almost been started over scientists tracking birds with radio transmitters. I wouldn't have believed it except the bird that started a diplomatic event between Israel and Saudi Arabia was right there in front of me. I even spoke to the high-ranking government official charged with the politically difficult task of returning the bird (a huge fish eagle) to Israel when both countries had severed diplomatic relations since they were officially at a state of war who laughingly verified that what Jaime had told me was true.
The fish eagle was wearing a radio attached to a back pack to track her migration route when she ended up in dire straits and was captured by a Saudi family. The Arabian Peninsula is a major migratory route between Europe and Africa. The family kept this eagle in a room in their house and then noticed the back pack and radio. The police were called, who promptly arrested the eagle and put her in jail. When they somehow got the back pack off (it is amazing no one was injured by this really big eagle), they saw the return address was Tel Aviv University. Panic ensued, since they were now dealing with a spy eagle. The intelligence forces were called in and there was all kinds of diplomatic posturing and outrage before cooler heads prevailed and the Saudi intelligence were convinced that the Israelis were tracking her migration, not spying. By the time she came to Jaime, she had some damage to her trailing toe (which she needs to catch her main source of food, fish) from standing on concrete in jail. He rehabbed her and when she was fit enough, she was returned to Israel, which couldn't happen since Saudi Arabia was officially still at a state of war with Israel. Instead she went to Jordan, who sent her on her way back to the University of Tel Aviv. I learned the same absurdity happened when the Indian government was tracking some sort of bird of prey in the Kashmir region (hotly disputed area between India and Pakistan) and the Pakistani army got hold of the bird.
The group has been quiet lately--I hope I didn't bore you with my little story.
