Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2000 10:18:03 EST Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Joel Martin Subject: leuconistic junco MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Good Morning Ospreyers, This AM I had a partially leuconistic junco in my yard. At first glance I thought I had a molting snow bunting! The head was white except for a dark eye patch. The back was mostly slate, with a few white or white-tipped feathers. The secondaries and tertials were white, forming a large wing patch which was more extensive on the right side than on the left; a few of the outer primaries were also white. The tail was almost completely white; only one or two dark feather were present next to the normally white outer feathers. The underparts were normal, although the white belly may have been a little more extensive than usual. The bill was pink but the eye was definitely dark. All in all a very striking bird. It fed briefly at the tray feeder until incoming grackles and cowbirds forced it to the ground. There it fed for about 15 minutes, staying close to a normal, male junco. Anyone have any information on the prevalence of these morphs? Joel Martin Catonsville ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================