Leucism In Birds

I recently had an experience where I learned about leucism in birds.  About a month ago, Catherine Lucido down at the forks showed me and Wally some very blurry cell phone pictures of a small bird at her feeder that she had never seen before. It had a lot of white, and was at her feeder with a flock of Dark-eyed Juncos.  After scouring Sibley’s and other resources, I had no good ID guesses.  I sent copies of the photos to Marty Bray, biologist and expert birder.  He and his wife Jeannie both thought the bird was a Dark-eyed Junco with leucism.  Incidentally, they were in Columbia birding at the time.

A few days ago Catherine called to say the mystery bird returned and was at her feeder.  I rushed down with my camera and took pictures.  It's safe to say this bird is a leucistic Dark-eyed Junco.

I found out that Leucism is a genetic condition that causes some or all feathers to be white.  It is not the same as albinism in which the eyes would be pink.  Reptiles can also be leucistic.  Here is a link that shows various birds with leucism, including a Dark-eyed Junco.   

 https://www.birdnote.org/explore/field-notes/2018/04/why-bird-part-white-leucism

A normal Dark-eyed Junco has a little white on the outside edges of the tail feathers. This junco with leucism has one all brown tail feather and an all white one on the other side.

The Dark-eyed Junco with leucism.  Notice that the eye is not pink, meaning that it is not albino.

On the left is a normal Dark-eyed Junco for comparison.  In the middle is the leucistic junco.  The bird on the right is a Spotted Tohee.