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 cobirds+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to cobirds@googlegroups.com. 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.
