THE CHANGING SEASONS; THINK PINK 
Figyre 16. This striking leucistic Spotted Sandpiper was photographed near Kingston, Ontario 12 July 2099. Photograph bfPmIR. O'Jook. 
These may also have an easy explanation: 
namely as the summer sea ice disappears 
from the Arctic Ocean, some seabirds are 
dispersing into that “new” ocean. But when 
freeze-up comes in the late fall, it catches 
the murrelets wherever they may be, and so 
they move southward, showing up in east- 
ern North America, England, Romania, and 
so forth. These records have been increas- 
ing in frequency in recent years, and the 
connection to climate change again seems 
potentially obvious. 
Sandy suggests, too, that the unusual ap- 
pearances in the American East of Asian gull 
species, as well as the recent West Coast 
records of Iceland Gulls that appear to be of 
the nominate subspecies, may simply be the 
result of dispersal of many taxa into the “new” 
ocean after breeding, following by southward 
migration from unaccustomed longitudes — a 
very sensible suggestion. 
Black and white 
Even in a lifetime of birding, one may be priv- 
ileged to see only a handful of genuinely 
melanistic birds, those with an excess of 
melanin in the plumage. Most appear mostly 
sooty overall, rather than blackish, and usual- 
ly have some hints of typical plumage pattern. 
Leucistic birds, though far more common 
than melanistic ones, are nevertheless far 
more frequently recorded in some bird species 
than others; most of us have seen a leucistic 
gull, goose, or blackbird at some point. As do 
hybrids, these birds keep us on our toes, and a 
good study of such a “sport” is often reward 
enough for a long day in the field and a re- 
minder to expect the truly unexpected. 
A poor look at a flying melanistic Yellow- 
billed Cuckoo, such as the one nicely pho- 
tographed in Travis County, Texas on 20 July 
2009 (Figure 15), could produce all sorts of in- 
teresting misprisions — many not in the genus 
Coccyzus or the family Cuculidae! One nor- 
mally thinks of plumage color as unrelated to 
a bird’s shape, but veteran birders agree that 
pigmentation can have an influence on how 
we perceive a bird’s size and even its structure. 
For observers who have felt disheartened be- 
cause an avian records committee has not ac- 
cepted a sight record, it is worth bearing such 
records of oddly pigmented birds, and hybrids, 
in mind; when considering records that lack 
strong photographic or specimen evidence, 
committees need to be able to rule out even 
the improbable. Fortunately, some birds with 
aberrant plumages give us other clues, such as 
the telltale shape and tail-bobbing of Spotted 
Sandpiper (Figure 16). But how would one 
rule out the very similar Common Sandpiper 
in such an unusual case? This juvenile has 
rather strong markings in the median and less- 
er coverts but little or none in the tertials and 
greater coverts, thus much better for a Spotted. 
And the tail projection is short, unlike Com- 
mon. One can never be too careful.... 
Acknowledgments 
I am indebted to Adam Byrne, Sandy 
Williams, Ken Blankenship, Marshall Iliff, 
and Jeff Wells for their careful review and cor- 
rection of sections of this essay and/or for 
data contained herein. 
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