Dennis Paulson writes,

What's going on here? Are chickadees hybridizing extensively with juncos
(imagine populations of black-capped juncadees and dark-eyed chickos)? Why
all these albino chickadees? Relaxed predation in the city, as in London,
with all its partial albinos? But the Chestnut-backed was way out in the
country. Why the tail? I've never seen a white-tailed partial albino
before, to my recollection, and now two chickadees just a few days apart


This reminds me of being back in California and down in the Monterey area and
seeing Heermann's Gulls with a large white patch in their wings. This wasn't
just one bird but a series of Heermann's with the same white patch. Sort of a
club. I would ask questions of assorted experts but I could never get a really

good answer, or much consistency. They probably weren't a race. Sort of a
morph. One would be tempted to say 'partial albinism' but does that really
explain how a group of birds have similar partial albinism? Can it be
genetically encoded? (But now I am way past my background level) We never saw
these birds north of Monterey, only south.

Definitely one of the true pleasures of field work is coming up with records
that confounds the experts.

Jim Rosso
Issaquah/Bellingham
425-392-8440