Freak of Nature?

Our nephew Taylor stayed with us last night, and he and G watched the Glasgow Warriors rugby team beat some other team in a match.  It must have been important, as I could hear the two of them roaring like bulls at regular intervals. 

By the time I pulled myself in from the garden it was getting dark, and G was heading up the stairs to Befordshire, having been up since 5.30am.  I was late to bed, and so had a nice long lie this morning, before getting up and cooking sausages for breakfast.  G had been to the shops and brought back lovely beef sausages and fresh rolls, and my papers. 

The boys ate their rolls and sausage in the livingroom, with coffee and juice.  I sat - as I always do - at the table in the kitchen, reading the papers while I breakfasted. 

One of the things I did yesterday was to fill all the bird feeders.  Many people stop feeding the birds when the winter is over, but I think that while they are having to care for their chicks they are probably even more in need of sustenance.  And I really love to have the little finches and sparrows etc. in the garden. 

The provision of all this bounty had made a bit of a feeding frenzy this morning, as crows, jackdaws and starlings swooped and gobbled, stuffing their greedy faces with everything they could get to. 

I looked up at one point to see the back of a large bird, which I thought at first was a sparrowhawk due to the colouration of the plumage, but them I realised it was the wrong shape.  This rather handsome chap turned around, and I saw from his face that he was a white crow!

In actual fact, he was a creamy colour, with a face of brown, and piercing blue eyes.  Managed to get to my camera before he flew off, but sadly these pictures are taken through the glass so are not that good.  Nor is my zoom capability good enough to adequately capture what a good looking bird he (or she) was. 

As I watched, he flew off in the midst of a dozen or so other crows, who were apparently quite oblivious to the fact he was a different colour.  They alighted in a different tree, and then this guy (I'm going to call him Mr White) and one of his more traditional looking brothers took up position on opposing poles of some scaffolding at the house being built in the next garden.

I've noticed lots of crows lately who have white patches on their wings, but this is the first all-white one I've seen.  How rare is it do you think?

And , is he albino when he has blue, not pink, eyes?

After breakfast and the birds having flown off, I did a little bit of housework, took Taylor with me when I went to pick up Mum, and then dropped him off at home before taking her for her shopping.  We had a nice wee visit to a local nursery to pick up some plants for her garden before we went for coffee and cake. 

Oh yeah, and G won £25 on the lottery this weekend.  Come on - how lucky are we?

Have a good week all, into June we go.