Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 15:39:27 EST Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Joel Martin Subject: Possible Leucistic Harris's Sparrow, Baltimore Co. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sorry for the blank post, having trouble doing this from my office computer. Today between 1 and 2 PM I went looking for the partially leucistic Zonotrichia sparrow in Woodstock, reported yesterday by Mike Bowen. I saw the bird twice, with less than satisfactory views, for a total of maybe 1 minute. Since my only experience with Harris's is the Harvey's bird, I'm even less inclined than Mike to say what it is. But this is one strange looking sparrow and I hope someone else can get a definitive look. It is big and chunky, with a large rounded head and relatively small, pink bill. The eye appeared to me to be dark and very beady, set against a fairly unmarked gray face. The top of the head, where you'd expect the Harris's to be black, has some dark pigment but is mostly mottled with white, which fans out over the nape and onto the sides of the neck. There is a definite collared appearance, separating the head and neck from the back and breast. The tertials are strongly tipped with white and there are two thin white wing bars. I didn't get a good frontal view but what I could see of the underparts appeared more grayish than white (more like a White-crowned), but given the poor light this is very subjective. There was some very suffused streaking on the flanks. I did hear one strange White-throat-like song, two high notes followed by two lower notes, but it was impossible to say which bird it was coming from. The bird was foraging in a mixed flock of sparrows, mostly WT's, off the side of Woodstock Road on the NE side of the bridge, in dense brush near where a culvert runs under the road (opposite the yellow gate). There is good habitat on both sides of the road for about 100 yards on either side. I had a camera with a 400mm lens but was unable to get on the bird in the rather dim conditions. I plan to go looking again tomorrow morning, probably around 8 AM, if anyone would like to join me. I'll probably park at the yellow gate. Joel Martin Catonsville, MD jcdlmartin@aol.com ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================