Expert: Julia Booth - 8/13/2008

Question
please see
http://media.photobucket.com/image/mysterybird/lwpdjv/53400017.jpg?o=1
sorry for poor quality, but it's a close up of fearless newcomer-regular to our feeder, hangs around with sparrows, even affectionately headbutted with one, flew within inches of human heads
-white forehead, on crown, tail-tip, wingtips
-orangey-yellow
-eating sunflower seed, also hopping around on ground, wire-perching with sparrows
-part albino something?
-whatbird.com search couldn't help
-in central toronto, very treed lot, mile from nearest wilder area (ravine park)
thanks for having a look


Answer
That is an odd one. Beak is too thick to be a Goldfinch. My primary instinct is to say Evening Grosbeak. The coloring is off. But that is the closest match taken from the Toronto checklist. The big difference -and I can't really make out size from your image- is that the finch is about 5 inches and the grosbeak is about 8. Judging by the faded appearance of its color, I'd also deduce that it's a female of whatever species. Color variations do exist geographically.

Here's what you know for sure: it eats sunflower seeds, and grosbeaks are famous for that.

Whatbird.com is great. But it doesn't allow for female or juvenile markings to be used in the search.

I guess the last thing you could find out, which would probably give you a definite ID, is the call the birds makes. Then you could listen to soundbytes and compare.

I'm going to stick with color variant, female Evening Grosbeak. Feel free to consult a second opinion -always.

Julia