Strange bird in Montrose, Colorado

[Holmgren, at <pholmgren at NYBG.ORG>.bitnet>]

My sister (Shirley Needham, spaceworksnc at msn.com) says:

"The great minds of the Forsyth County, North Carolina Audubon Society have
come up with: Junco hyemalis, leucistic pink-sided form"

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Egger
To: TAXACOM at USOBI.ORG
Sent: 1/26/03 2:29 PM
Subject: Strange bird in Montrose, Colorado

Jim and group,

I took the liberty of posting Jim's message to a birding list serve
to which I belong. The concensus of that group was that the bird in
question is a "leucistic" junco, a minor genetic patterning
aberration, and not an (improbable) hybrid, such as junco x chickadee
(the name "junkadee" was suggested by one person in jest...). This
"odd junco" hypothesis seems a lot more likely to me, as
morphologically the bird is identical to a normal junco, except for
the odd plummage markings on the head & chest areas. Interesting bird!

Mark