On Mar 4, 2011, at 7:55 PM, birdmandea at aol.com wrote:

>
> Greetings, I took a quick walk out to the twin barns at the NWR today. As I entered the willow thicket I came upon two Towhees and several American Robins feeding in the muddy ground clutter. A bold flash of white caught my attention and I was treated to a leucistic robin posing for me. It is on my Flickr.
>
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/25348030 at N07/5498668122/

Hah!

Ed Siegel and I saw that bird 19 days ago at Nisqually. The symmetrical white inner secondaries are the key I remember.

Nice photos: mine were pretty poor.

On the ground by the "freshwater" boardwalk he was rather difficult to see: the mottled white improved his camouflage though the secondaries and tail were a bit bright. Clearly he's staying in the same area.

I saw another leucistic American Robin (in Volunteer Park) at the start of December last year with a very distinct with a white "bandit mask" around the eyes that was symmetric on both sides of the head. I saw him for a couple of day then nothing. But a week ago I bumped into the same bird again. Three months later but I know it's the same bird. Maybe they do hang around a small area for the winter rather than roaming the city.

Individual marking makes for an interesting take on birding.
--
Kevin Purcell (Capitol Hill, Seattle, WA)
kevinpurcell at pobox.com
http://kevinpurcell.posterous.com
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