(CBS Local) — Biologists say a woman in Alabama has a “one in a million” house guest as an extremely rare yellow cardinal has been filmed snacking at the homeowner’s bird feeder repeatedly.
“I thought ‘well there’s a bird I’ve never seen before’,” Charlie Stephenson said, via AL.com. “Then I realized it was a cardinal, and it was a yellow cardinal.”
Auburn University biology professor Geoffrey Hill says the rare find is definitely a genetic mutation of 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,” Prof. Hill said.
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Hill added that there were likely only two or three yellow cardinals flying to outdoor bird feeders in the U.S. and Canada each year. “Yellow cardinals are a one in a million mutation.”
