Dear Brendan, Marvin, and Tweeters,

That's a nice-looking albinistic or partial albino or
leucistic Song Sparrow, indeed--depending on one's
choice of terminology.

I don't have my notes on hand right now, but I have
been casually collecting field notes on such birds for
a decade or two. It seems to me that there is often a
symmetry to the arrangement of white on such birds.
Oregon Juncos and Red-winged and Brewer's Blackbirds
are some species that are somewhat prone to it.
Sometimes the birds end up looking like some unknown
species. I have seen three different Red-winged
Blackbirds that resembled gigantic American Redstarts.
A couple of years ago, a junco in Skagit County was
identified as a Snow Bunting by several birders,
because the bird had "all the right field marks" one
expects on that species--except for the fact that it
was visiting a bird feeder in a woodsy area!

Yours truly,

Gary Bletsch




--- Brendan McGarry <mcgbre04 at gmail.com> schrieb:

> Nice Song Sparrow! This reminded me of a crow I saw
> this last Friday in the
> Wallingford neighborhood of Seattle. It had
> practically symmetrical white
> patches in the middle of both wings (about where
> primaries and secondaries
> meet, also a bit of the coverts were white as well).
> It didn't look like
> dye or paint, it looked like a leucistic coloration.
> I don't remember
> seeing a case like this - symmetrical coloration (or
> lack of coloration
> rather). Does anyone know how common this is? Or
> maybe someone knows of
> some study the UW might be conducting with crows
> (seems unlikely because the
> bird wasn't banded). Anyway - thanks!
>
> -Brendan McGarry
> Seattle, WA
> mcgbre04 at gmail.com
>
>
> On Feb 4, 2008 9:17 AM, Marvin S. Hoekstra
> <marvin.hoekstra at verizon.net>
> wrote:
>
> > On Saturday afternoon (Feb 2) I spotted and
> photographed an unusual white
> > headed sparrow in with a group of song sparrows.
> Does anyone know what
> > would cause such an unusual coloration?
> >
> >
> >
> > http://www.flickr.com/photos/21019806 at N05/
> >
> >
> >
> > Marvin S. Hoekstra
> >
> > Sammamish, WA
> >
> > marvin dot hoekstra at verizon dot net
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Tweeters mailing list
> > Tweeters at u.washington.edu
> >
>
http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> Tweeters mailing list
> Tweeters at u.washington.edu
>
http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters
>



Yours truly,

Gary Bletsch

near Lyman (Skagit County), Washington

garybletsch at yahoo.com



Lesen Sie Ihre E-Mails jetzt einfach von unterwegs.
www.yahoo.de/go