LAST week I was out walking between Gisburn and Rivington when I saw a white crow.

A couple of years ago a Lancashire Telegraph photographer saw a white sparrow.

When I wrote about this sparrow, scientific opinion was that albino birds and animals resulted from heredity.

Like red hair in humans, a gene appears every so often and is a rare, but natural occurrence.

Only last week I read a scientific paper suggesting that diet may sometimes cause albinos to develop.

This has not yet been proved and more research needs to be done.

What is the case is that more albino mammals and birds are being reported. This, however, does not surprise me.

More and more people are now taking an interest in natural history and the countryside. The more people that are looking for things of interest, the more albinos will be spotted.

This new theory, which also suggests that albinos may result because of chemicals sprayed on the land, does need to be looked at. I was recently in the outback of Australia and saw a white kangaroo away in the distance.

I spoke to a group of local lads and a couple of scientists, all agreed that white animals turn up occasionally and no chemicals have ever been in the area.

We agreed also that this suggests that albinism is hereditary.

We do, however, need to look carefully at the new research.