White-throated Sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis)

This species is a common winter visitor to East Texas usually departing by April. They are famous for negative assortative mating between the two color morphs. White-striped morphs prefer to mate with tan-striped morphs and vice versa. This appears to be a white-striped morph although it still has extensive ventral streaking usually seen on tan striped morphs. This species does not cleanly separate into tan and white striped morphs in the winter. The strong bimodal plumage pattern is normally expressed only in the breeding season. In the winter there is more of a continuum of head stripe color variation, possibly to facilitate flock cohesiveness (Atkinson & Ralph 1980).