At 08:18 AM 1/15/97 -0500, you wrote:

Hi Lois,

I looked at the photos at your website. I realize that I am not nearly
as experienced a birder the people you have on your website with their
impressions
but thought I would offer a possible suggestion.

Have you considered one of the rosy finches? Perhaps this is an
aberrant
colorization of one of the darker rosy finch subspecies. That was my first
impression
from the photos. I hope you are able to solve your mystery. Please keep us
posted.

Denny Granstrand
901 S. 32nd Ave.
Yakima, WA 98902
osprey at nwinfo.net

>Dear Tweeters:
> Since there is a NW sparrow mystery, perhaps you would like to see
>our current puzzle. Some of you who read various national listservs may
>already know that we have a very unusual mystery bird coming to a feeder
>here in Durham. The bird is some sort of melanistic?/erythristic?/hybrid?
>emberzid. It is in its second winter at this feeder, and migrated last
>summer with our local winter sparrows. Exotics/escapes seem to have been
>ruled out.
> We now have pictures on line, and I invite you all to have a look,
>and share your ideas with us. The web site address is:
> http://www.lib.duke.edu/bes/mystery/
>The site includes comments from some notable authorities, but no one as
>of yet has a positive ID. Send your comments directly to me and I will
>forward them to our Carolinabirds chat line.
>
>Lois Schultz
>lois at acpub.duke.edu
>Duke University Library
>
>