Saturday, November 22, 2014

Birds of No Color




Joe Hiscock of Burgeo, Newfoundland recently sent me this video of a white sparrow in his yard. I have looked at the clip several times and can not tell what kind of sparrow it is. With his permission, I post it here in the hopes someone can provide some info about this bird.

 Yesterday, I had a visit from a washed-out (leucistic) American Goldfinch.
 Where there is supposed to be black, it is white. It's overall body is much paler than usual, as well. Underneath, the bird appeared very white.
 In recent months, there have been several reports of birds without normal color pigment. I tried to locate all of the posts on the Discussion Group, but couldn't narrow in on the posts.
From memory, I know Shawn Fitzpatrick reported a leucistic Black-capped Chickadee and Alison Mews had a leucistic junco at her feeder. I seem to remember a seabird also reported at Cape Race and another possible one in Glovertown. Add to this the above sparrow and this goldfinch, there seems to be more of these birds showing up. That begs the question: "Why?"

3 comments:

  1. Really? I didn't even consider that. You may be right. I wish I could see it in relation to the size of another bird.

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  2. American goldfinch, compare the Wings

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