“What is that bird?” my husband said last Friday. He pointed out our sunroom window at the ground below our bird feeders. I had to admit, I was stumped as well. Here’s who we saw:

First hint: It’s a sparrow, but obviously the white head is super unusual.

Second hint: This bird has the same condition as another animal I wrote about on a Driftless Thursday: Louie, the 13-lined ground squirrel.

Third hint: Here’s this bird with “normal” friends:

Our new white-headed buddy is a White-Throated Sparrow with leucism, a genetic condition causing partial loss of pigmentation. The white throat patch on the normal version in the center of the picture, along with the yellow patch between the eye and the upper bill, solves the puzzle. (Word of the Day: This area on a bird between the eye and the upper bill is called the “lore.”)

The leucistic version lost most of its head coloring but still has the yellow lores. Here are a couple more shots of our lovely new friend.:

We usually name special birds we see or get to know. My husband dubbed this one “The Speagle” because it looks like a sparrow crossed with a bald eagle.