May be not the best picture, but then again I was quite happy to spot it in the first place among the over 30,000 Barnacle Geese at Gruinart that day. If you look closely at the goose in the middle of the small group of three you’ll notice it is almost white, only the neck is grey. The experts tell me it is a leucistic Barnacle Goose, leucism is a condition characterized by reduced pigmentation in animals caused by a recessive allele.

(Wikipedia entry for Leucism)

A view from October 2013 a few days after the Barnacle Geese had arrived on Islay. Some of the geese are feeding on the Gruinart Flats with many more in the air above, having been spooked elsewhere.