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 |