I rolled out of bed at 4 AM muttering unpleasantries under my breath about getting out of a nice warm bed on a very cold winter morning. But getting up early and venturing out into the bone crushing cold is part of the job for this wildlife photographer.

Three layers of clothing, extreme weather boots and my warmest hat and gloves and I am all set to go. I made sure my camera batteries were fully charged the night before. Camera memory cards were in my pocket and my GPS was fired up. I was all set to go.

I drove about 3 hours one way to search for a very special critter. For the past four years I have been traveling to this region to photograph a unique animal. So what is this special critter that beckons me out of bed? A pure white White-tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus).

All across this great nation there are pockets of these white ghosts roaming the forests. Estimates are about one in every 30,000 deer is a white one. I have read other estimates that only one in every 100,000 are white. Of course there is no way to confirm this but I am comfortable in saying that white deer are not very common at all.

Which brings me to the sticky subject of why are these deer white and what do you call them? Most people would call them albino. Albinism is a condition where the body cannot produce the pigments needed to color hair and skin. It is caused by a recessive gene. In order for albinism to occur it requires both parents to carry the recessive gene and pass it onto the young.

By definition Albinism is the complete absence of normal pigmentation in an animal. This means no pigment at all resulting in the animal having pink eyes, nose, ears and hooves. The lack of pigment in the irises of the eyes reduces the animal’s ability to see, combined that with a pure white coat that makes them stand out like a snowball on a summer’s day means these animals don’t last very long in the predator and prey world of nature. In fact most albino animals don’t live very long and rarely live long enough to reproduce.

So how does that explain the pockets of white deer in the woods? I suspect it’s because the deer are not true albino but rather a partial or imperfect albino. The white deer I am photographing don’t have pink eyes, but rather have gray to almost blue eyes. Apparently they have a small amount of pigment in their eyes giving them relatively normal eyesight and thus the ability to survive and reproduce.

Some deer are white with patches of brown giving them the appearance of being spotted or looking like a pinto horse. These are called piebald deer. Piebald deer are thought to be slightly more common than albino deer and presumably live longer and reproduce more often than albino deer. The same genetic deficiency causes piebald deer as it does in albino deer.

I have always enjoyed photographing the oddities of nature and these white deer are some of my favorites. Until next time

Stan Tekiela is an author/naturalist and wildlife photographer who travels the US to study and photograph wildlife. He can be contacted via his web page at www.naturesmart.com