A rare yellow cardinal has been spotted in Alabaster, Alabama, thrilling bird-watching enthusiasts.
A wildlife photographer spotted the Yellow American Northern Cardinal, known for its rare mutation that blocks the pathway that produces its usual red pigment, recently and now the bird has been seen by others in the area, according to WIAT-TV.
"Just looking out my back window and I saw a yellow bird far back in the yard and when I realized that's a cardinal and it's yellow," Charlie Stephenson, who said she then contacted Auburn University biologist Geoffrey Hill about it, told WIAT-TV.
Jeremy Black, a professional photographer, told the television station that he was skeptical at first, along with others, until he finally saw the bird for himself in Stephenson's yard on Feb. 19.
"I was hoping that OK, this is not a hoax," Black said. "Some people were thinking it was photoshopped and I was like I have to see this if it’s here I really want to see this, so I sat there and I sat on the screened in pavilion trying to hide from it a little bit so it wouldn’t see me within about four or five hours it finally landed."
Hill told AL.com that the bird in the photos is an adult male in the same species as the common red cardinal.
"I've been birdwatching in the range of cardinals for 40 years and I've never seen a yellow bird in the wild," Hill said. "I would estimate that in any given year there are two or three yellow cardinals at backyard feeding stations somewhere in the U.S. or Canada.
"There are probably a million bird feeding stations in that area so very, very roughly, yellow cardinals are a one in a million mutation," he continued.
Stephenson told AL.com that she initially did not realize how rare the bird was when she saw it in January.
"I'm used to being a birder and you see some leukocytic ones, you see some albino ones," she told the website. "But I thought this was something else and then I learned how rare it is."