{"id":740086,"date":"2026-08-16T19:26:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-16T19:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/740086\/"},"modified":"2026-08-16T19:26:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T19:26:10","slug":"white-magpie-spotted-behind-hamlyn-place-kingsland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/740086\/","title":{"rendered":"White magpie spotted behind Hamlyn Place, Kingsland"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n  The bird, seen behind Hamlyn Place, was first noticed by David Clegg at around 10am this morning.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Only one in a million magpies are reported to be white.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The unusual colouring is due to leucism, a genetic mutation that prevents pigment from developing in the feathers.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The Welsh Ornithological Society said: &#8220;White magpies are a very unusual sight.&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Leucism can also weaken feather structure, making flight more difficult.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The birds&#8217; pale appearance makes them more visible to predators, and there is evidence they may be rejected by mates because of their colouring.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The British Trust for Ornithology asks those who spot white magpies to get in touch to help them understand the impact of the condition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The bird, seen behind Hamlyn Place, was first noticed by David Clegg at around 10am this morning. Only&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":740087,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-740086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=740086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/740087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=740086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=740086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=740086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}