I say it's an escaped exotic. The bill looks very much like it belongs to
an Indigobird or one of the waxbills. I'm guessing that it's probably under
gone some selective breeding as well which would make it difficult to find
in an Asian or African bird book.

The exotic possibility is never very popular for some reason, and I noticed
the comment by James Rising that he originally thought it was an escape then
changed his mind when it returned for 2 winters. I'm not sure how leaving
(or appearing to leave) then returning invalidated the escaped exotic
hypothesis, but he seems to believe it should.

The Junco x something is, I think, the only other likely hypothesis and I
was surprised to here that they regularly cross with White-throats.




--
*********************************** I was of three minds
* Mike Patterson, Astoria, OR * like a tree
* mpatters at orednet.org * in which there are three blackbirds.
*http://www.pacifier.com/~mpatters* -Wallace Stevens