White hummingbird draws fans

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Jim M cCORMAC | For The Dispatch
This ruby-throated hummingbird, photographed recently at Inniswood Metro Gardens, has a condition that reduces pigmentation, but it isn’t an albino.

People are smitten with rarities. No one thinks twice about a 46-cent stamp fresh from the post office. Make that an 1867 stamp emblazoned with Abraham Lincoln, however, and collectors will pay more than $200,000 for it.

Bird-watchers aren’t much different. The rare and unusual birds attract lots of attention.

Take the ruby-throated hummingbird. The amazing aeronaut weighs less than a nickel, measures 3½ inches long and can beat its wings up to 200 times a second.

Ohio hosts an estimated 490,000 ruby-throated hummingbirds each year; anyone with a garden and a feeder can attract them.

A typical ruby-throated hummingbird is mostly iridescent dark green and white; males have a brilliant red throat. Unless the sun glints off the plumage, a hummingbird often looks dark.

Unless it’s snowy white.

On Oct. 18, an extraordinary hummingbird appeared in the herb garden at Inniswood Metro Gardens.

I stopped in recently and was treated to the spectacle of an ivory-colored hummingbird flitting among the salvia, lapping nectar. It was a ghostly wraith, quite unlike the typical hummingbird, and it elicited oohs and aahs from the assembled throng.

An obvious question arose: What species was it?

The only hummingbird breeding east of the Mississippi River is the ruby-throated hummingbird, which is common statewide. But most ruby-throats have fled for the tropics of Central America by mid-October.

A hummingbird seen after that is likely to be a Western species such as the rufous hummingbird. There are several dozen recorded sightings of the species in Ohio, and one record each of four other species.

Clearly, the white hummingbird was leucistic — a genetic condition that causes a reduction of dark pigments, including melanin. The end effect is an animal that is partly or mostly white, but the eyes remain dark — unlike albino animals, which have pink eyes.

Leucism is often expressed in patchiness and is responsible for “piebald” deer, robins and other animals with blotchy white patterns.

Unnaturally white birds are tricky to identify because the telltale coloration is largely absent. Bird-watchers were initially flummoxed about Inniswood’s white hummingbird.

Digital camera technology ultimately cracked the case. Crisp images were sent to Michigan hummingbird expert Allen Chartier, who pronounced the bird to be a hatch-year female ruby-throated hummingbird.

There is still plenty of salvia in bloom at Inniswood, and staff members installed a hummingbird feeder. Ohio’s latest-lingering ruby-throated hummingbird stayed into early December. Where this bird might go for the winter and whether it will return next season is anybody’s guess.

For more information about Inniswood Metro Gardens, call 614-895-6216.
