Towheeblog

UPDATE:  possibly a $25 word to describe this bird? “schizochroism: washed-out plumage from a lack of a pigment.”

Having studied no formal biology since high school, I am now officially out of my scientific depth.

Here’s how my Cambridge Encyclopedia of Ornithology deals with the definitions involved in this individual: “A reduction in the intensity of all pigments is called dilution or leucism….Schizochroism is the absence of one or more normally occurring pigments.”

Unusual leucistic Varied Thrush.  Photos by my brother-in-law, Michael Tout, in his garden in Eureka, CA. Below: normal Varied Thrush on same feeder in same light conditions.