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.
[…] A pale-faced Varied Thrush in Eureka. […]
By: EYE-POPPING WOODPECKER: LEUCISTIC ACORN WOODPECKER | Towheeblog on December 6, 2019
at 3:16 pm