Back story on the photo: I volunteered for many years at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of MN. For most of the years I was there in the Avian Nursery, we were on the St. Paul Campus of the U of MN. This bird was brought to the nursery after a bad storm (with hail preceding a tornado) went through Roseville and Shoreview. Several trees with bird and squirrel nests were downed. This juvenile robin was in pretty good shape when it arrived, but not old enough to be fully feeding itself. We cared for it in the Avian Nursery until it was not often taking the offered food. The Center was in the Old Anatomy Building on campus. There were 3 stalls in the back half of the building, which were screened in and turned into “Flight Rooms”. The mature birds lived in community in these areas. One of the stalls was for the more aggressive songbirds–crows, starlings, blue jays, grackles, etc. A small one had a little pool for the Waterfowl Nursery. The largest of the stalls was for all the other songbirds. We brought them food every shift. They were weighed daily to make sure they were eating on the their own. Once they were stable in the flight room for about a week or so, they were released back to the area the came from. Normally, songbirds are not tagged for tracking. In this case, because the albino bird was rare, the Federal person came in and tagged this one. It was then released back to the Grass Lake area in Shoreview.

I volunteered again for a few years after the Center moved to a beautiful new building in front of the Harriet Alexander Nature Center, but never had another experience like we had with this robin. To date, this is the only albino bird I have seen in person.