I like to call the pileated woodpecker North America’s second largest woodpecker species, because I like to believe that there is still an ivory-billed hidden somewhere deep in an Arkansas forest.
And although certainly not as surprising as finding an ivory-billed woodpecker would be - the last universally accepted sighting was in 1944 - this particular pileated woodpecker is still quite unusual because of its yellow crest. The crest is typically crimson red. I can find evidence of just five yellow-crested individuals like this in existence. Three of them, including this one, are here in the Louisville area. Another was spotted on Hornby Island, near Vancouver. There have also been reports from the Frankfort / Lexington, Kentucky area (thanks to William Parsley who shared this information with me after seeing my photo).
Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus) With Atypical Yellow-Crest | Prospect, Kentucky
500mm | 1/200th second | f/6.3 | ISO 640
Pigment variations occur in birds and pretty much all animals (including humans) from time to time. Like mammals, birds can exhibit melanism - an excess of the dark pigment, melanin. Black panthers, which can refer to either a black jaguar or leopard, are simply melanistic variants of typical spotted cats. Likewise, leucistic birds occur fairly regularly. Leucism is essentially the opposite of melanism - a partial loss of pigment instead of an excess. Leucism is different from albinism, which refers to a total absence of melanin. Albino animals rarely survive in the wild since they are more easily spotted by predators and often have poor vision.
Typical Pileated Woodpecker with Red-Crest | Louisville, Kentucky
600mm | 1/200th second | f/6.3 | ISO 6400
Birds in which normally red plumage is replaced by yellow pop up from time to time. A yellow northern cardinal quickly became famous after it was spotted in 2018 (note that this yellow northern cardinal, Cardinalis cardinalis, which is normally red, is different from the yellow cardinal, Gubernatrix cristata, which lives in South America and is normally yellow as the name sugggests). There are a couple potential causes. The most probably seems to be xanthrochroism (or xanthrochromism), a mutation which results in under-production of red pigment that is then replaced by yellow (which may already be present, just not normally visible).
Yellow-Crested Pileated Woodpecker
500mm | 1/200th second | f/6.3 | ISO 900
It is possible that these birds cannot reproduce, which would help explain their rarity. It appears the same red-crested parents have produced all three yellow-crested birds here in the Louisville, and thus it’s possible we will see more (on average one of every four chicks, assuming this is caused by two recessive genes coming together). In any case, I’m glad I looked up at the right time and was able to photograph this very interesting bird!