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Subject:

White-eyed House Sparrow

From:

June Tveekrem

Reply-To:

June Tveekrem

Date:

Mon, 15 Jan 2007 17:52:45 -0500

Around 2:00 this afternoon I saw a male House Sparrow in my yard that 
had white eyes! It was behaving normally, not as if it were blind or 
partly blind. It was in a small flock of House Sparrows hanging around a 
brush pile and eating millet that I had thrown on the ground this 
morning. All the other birds had dark eyes. This bird showed no 
leucistic feathers; it was in normal non-breeding plumage like the others.

Several field guides show that the male House Sparrow in breeding 
plumage has a white spot behind each eye. But that spot is more of a 
light brown in non-breeding plumage and is smaller.

It wasn't a reflection; the sun angle was wrong and it was overcast 
anyway this afternoon.

I don't know what to make of this.

-- 
June Tveekrem
Columbia, Maryland
tweekiebird|AT|southernspreadwing.com