Fall 2005

Table of Contents

White bird is special backyard visitor

Backyard Wildlife Sanctuary Manager Trudie McFall of Auburn e-mailed us pictures and questions about a white bird that visited her yard this summer.

“It seems to hang around with the finches, eats finch food, and chirps like a finch, yet it is mostly white with brown markings on the back and head,” she wrote. “(And) it has a band around its right leg. (Can) you guys figure out the story behind this interesting looking bird?”

Hmmmm. If it looks like a finch, sounds like a finch, eats like a finch, and hangs out like a finch, we tend to think it probably IS a finch – and not an albino because it does have some pigment, but perhaps just a fashion-setting one in its unique white plumage.

Actually, our conclusion is backed up by Cornell University’s Lab of Ornithology “Project Feeder Watch” which relays the following under “Other Strange Looking Birds”:

Most likely the birds are what they appear to be, only with some sort of color variation. Remember that size, shape, and behavior often will help to identify a bird even when its plumage looks odd. Comparing the strange bird with other birds nearby can be helpful. True albinism is much less common than partial albinism, but easier to identify. Completely albino birds have absolutely no pigment in their feathers, bills, or legs, and their eyes appear red. There are several types of genetic color variants:

• albinism: all or partially white plumage
• melanism: extra-dark plumage
• xanthochroism: yellowish or orange plumage (usually instead of red)
• erythrism: reddish plumage

Other color variations, such as yellow or orange feathers, usually are related to diet. For example House Finches are typically yellow or orange in the west because of their diet. Learn more about color variation in House Finches.

Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) wildlife biologist Patricia Thompson reports that backyard surveys during the winter of 2002 included many comments about white plumage on birds. Several species were described, but the two mentioned most were crows and juncos. Crows usually had white wing feathers and juncos had white heads.

“We can’t know if there are in fact more individuals with white color variations,” Thompson said in her report that year, “or more people seeing and recording them. Still, it looks as if the genetic anomalies are surviving to breed and pass on the white color.”

Thompson also noted that the Sibley Field Guide to Birds even describes a white color variant of the American Crow: “individuals with variable white wing-patches are rare but regular.”

The band on the white finch’s leg could be from any number of bird banding projects underway anywhere in the bird’s home range. House finches are considered residents, not long-distance or “true” migrants. But an individual seen in Auburn this summer could have been in Mount Vernon earlier this year and might be in Portland now.

We at the are not banding house finches per se, but we are involved in Mapping Avian Productivity and Survival (MAPS) surveys, along with other natural resource agencies, educational institutions, organizations, and individual volunteers. MAPS survey protocol includes placing numbered bands on birds captured in fine nets set up at designated locations year after year so that returning individuals can be recorded and habitat use patterns measured.

Trudie’s white finch would have to be captured to examine its band and determine its origin.

In the meantime, enjoy imagining the possibilities about this curious visitor.