Birder spots rare, white red-tailed hawk

When a friend told him of a white bird of prey on his family’s property along Alpowa Creek last week, David Moen immediately assumed it was either a gyrfalcon or snowy owl.

While neither of the arctic birds are frequent visitors to the Lower 48 states, under the right conditions, they’ve been known to find their way this far south.

“Both of those depend on lemming populations crashing and severe winters in the north,” said Moen, an avid birder, apprentice falconer and conservation biologist for the Nez Perce Tribe’s Wildlife Division. “Those youngsters will come down and loop into Washington and the northern states in those conditions.”

Moen, battling daylight that was slipping away, quickly made his way to the area and located what he describes as a “glowing white bird” perched on a fence post.

Right away he knew his initial assumptions were wrong and this was something much more rare.

“Its profile was bulky up top and not streamlined,” thus a mismatch for a gyrfalcon, he said. “They have a narrow profile. They are just way more streamlined. I could tell this bird was top-heavy — meaning a larger head. Looking at it through binoculars, the beak was all wrong and the tail-to-body ratio was wrong for a gyrfalcon.”

He was looking at “a near fully leucistic red-tailed hawk.” Animals with leucism have reduced levels of melanin that often results in a blotchy white pattern. It is often confused with albinism which is the complete lack of melanin that results in an all white appearance and pink eyes.

This bird was dark-eyed and all white except for a few primary wing feathers and a few in its tail. Moen took a couple of pictures before losing light. He returned the next morning and was able to briefly find it again.

Other redtail hawks in the area had also spotted the bird and were not pleased it was intruding on their territory.

“He was in prime hunting ground and he was getting harrassed,” Moen said. “He was just finding out the lay of the land and it was densely occupied. I think he just picked up shop and moved on.”

Where? Moen said the all white redtail may still be in the general area along the lower Snake River somewhere.

“I think in this case he is probably not heading too far south. He is migrating in the sense of just looking for a territory.”

Moen’s friend Eric Wilson, who alerted him to the presence of the bird, also told him of seeing a white raptor last summer. That led Moen to speculate the bird may be local.

“My guess is that it was a fledgling bird heading out to explore the wider world when Eric saw him in July, and (last) weekend he just happened to close the circuit while passing back through while looking for an unoccupied territory.”

How unusual was the encounter?

“I have been birder my whole adult life and I saw one partially leucistic redtail hawk on the coast of California that I drove a weekend to go for and it was nowhere close to this one being almost pure white” he said. “I don’t know what the odds are but I know it’s a really rare experience and something birders talk about hoping to encounter, so it’s a very special thing.”

Barker may be contacted at ebarker@lmtribune.com.