Birding in BC Community

This small bird has been perplexing passers by for a few months at Jericho park. ID would be most appreciated.

Seen between February-May this year, at least.

Best guess would be a puffy wintering snow bunting, with its blackish wings and mottled head and body. On the other hand, this area is heavily trafficked by eBirders, and the last time a snow bunting was reported was 2017, although it was around the same time of year.

Mystery bird by Nic Bird, on Flickr
https://flic.kr/p/2nonHmQ

I would say it's a leucistic Spotted Towhee. Nice find.

Thanks for the reply. That's what I first suspected (of course I would say that!), but was put off by red-eyed examples I found upon googling, while this one seems more black-eyed. Nonetheless that would certainly explain why it is always around towhees, acting like a towhee.

I bumped up shadows and reds in lightroom and it turns out the eyes are actually medium brown. I suppose all bets are off with leucistic specimens.

Actually it's a leucistic Fox Sparrow!

You can see the 2 toned coloured bill, as well you can see some brown chevrons on the breast area!

Also you have the chunky shape of the Fox Sparrow!

It's really amazing leucistic bird, nearly all of it's features are gone!

northvanrob wrote:Actually it's a leucistic Fox Sparrow!

That was going to be my 2nd guess (yeah, easy for me to say now) but I went with Towhee just because of the company he was keeping.
Thanks Rob, and I agree it's an amazing bird.

what creates the birds to become this way

Leucism, is an abnormal plumage condition, which result in the partial loss of pigmentation with defects in pigment cells that are caused during development.

Originally it was thought to be a genetic mutation, but that's not the case!