Albino Robin Update: She Was Born in Strongsville to a Special Mom

The flying around the Webster Road area has an amazing back-story, as it turns out.

She is apparently the offspring of a robin hand-raised by Scot Hetzel, who lives in that area and nurtured a just-hatched robin to full, healthy adulthood two years ago.

"I believe that's the offspring of my bird," Hetzel said.

The story starts in spring 2009 when Hetzel's wife, Rosalee, brought some plants home from the Strongsville and found two just-hatched robins inside them -- born so recently, the eggshells were still stuck to them.

Scot, who had raised baby animals in the past, raced to the library and read up on raising robins, bought parakeet formula from the pet store and started the intense process of boiling and sterilizing the formula and feeding it to the birds every 15 minutes.

Yes, you read right -- every 15 minutes for six days.

"Everyone said I was crazy," Hetzel acknowleged. "Everyone."

One bird didn't make it, but the other, named Scruffles, thrived. The Hetzels kept the bird in the house more than six months before she was ready to be released.

Still, she stayed close, as robins do. Most live within a mile of where they were born.

"For months, that robin would come to me when I whistled," Hetzel said.

The following spring, she built a nest in the yard, and last fall, Hetzel spotted the albino bird hopping around with some other young robins.

"I'm positive she is one of the her (Scruffles') offspring," he said.

It makes sense -- experts at the pet store told him that feeding Scruffles parakeet food and raising her indoors would have an effect on her offspring.

"They said it wouldn't affect her, but her kids will be affected by it," Hetzel said.

Even though the bird looks pure white, he does not believe she is a pure albino. He said there is one black feather on her tail and said her beak is pale, but not colorless, which would make her a partial albino.

That means that while she is still more vulnerable to attacks from cats and hawks, she will not go blind from the sun's rays.

Rosalee posted a number of photos of Scruffles on  facebook and said called her husband "the bird whisperer."

Hetzel said a bird has built a nest near his kitchen window and he's betting -- and hoping -- it's the albino's.

"It could be her nest," he said. "We'll know in a few weeks."