I received the photo (below) from Dave Hyde, taken in Nederland Oct 10, by a nameless photographer.
It's an intriguing bird, so I thought I'd share it on COBirds. My first reaction was leucistic Dark-eyed Junco. Leucistic, not albino, based on the dark iris and black on wings. Albino would be all white and have a pink iris. However (by coincidence I think), it does come close to what a breeding plumage McKay's Bunting would look like! Why is it not a McKay's Bunting? That species molts to non-breeding plumage in August, per Sibley, plus it's an Alaskan bird with only a few reports from the coast of Washington and Oregon (per eBird) and I see no reports from farther south or east of there. Snow and McKay's Buntings have dinky, dark bills, and the mystery bird shows a larger, pale bill, compatible with leucistic junco. THANKS, Dave, for presenting this puzzle. Joe Roller, Denver [image: unnamed-7.jpg] -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/CAJpZcUBB2PyX%3DPGkZH7_xbCmbt3ZqQxSpFHevkL3H%3DzOxCt6RA%40mail.gmail.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
