It looks like the Filipino idiom “‘Pag pumuti na ang uwak” just lost a bit of its credibility — because, well, here we are looking at an actual white crow. Is the world ending? Is this your sign that your crush will finally like you back because she jokingly flung that idiom at you in the past?

A white crow was photographed in Misamis Oriental

Cagayan de Oro-based Wildlife photographer Jun Rey Yap captured the rare sighting while on a visit to Jasaan, Mindanao, last November.

“A true one-in-a-million sighting,” wrote Yap on Facebook. “It takes immense luck to spot an animal with this level of albinism, as their survival can be challenged by their lack of camouflage. Truly a magnificent, one-of-a-kind bird.”

The white crow is a rescue bird

According to Kuya Kim’s report on 24 Oras, the white crow was actually a rescue. A local family found it injured in the forest in 2020 and helped nurse it back to health. They even gave it a name: Warey.

The family tried to release the bird back into the wild, but it kept coming back to their home. When word got out about a white crow in Jasaan, Warey became an instant local celebrity. Photographers and content creators went out of their way to visit the rare bird and snap photos of it.

In 2014, a similar bird was also caught in the town of Villanueva.

What makes a crow white?

Warey’s striking all-white plumage is most likely due to albinism, a rare genetic condition that prevents the bird from producing melanin — the pigment responsible for dark feathers and other colors.

True albino birds have pure white feathers and pinkish eyes because the pigment is entirely absent. Albino crows are exceptionally uncommon in nature, with estimates suggesting that a fully albino crow may occur in only about one in every 30,000 to 100,000 births. This rarity is why sightings like this are so special and why albino birds often struggle to survive in the wild without some form of protection or care.

But honestly, beyond the wild wonder of nature, the best part is this: the next time someone throws that idiom your way, you now have photographic proof that sometimes the impossible does happen.

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