Note that many ordinary dark-eyed juncos of the race native to our area show some contrast between the "hood" and the back or side color. Some of these are females, many are juveniles - streaks on the side tend to suggest a juvenile. A true junco of the "Oregon" race is usually pretty unmistakable. There isn't any subtlety about the difference in color. It goes from a real black hood to a real brown back, with a pretty precise line of division. Paradoxically, identifying juncos of different races often involves making sure you're not studying the bird too hard. Good birding. Chris Spagnoli Lakewood P.S.: At East 72nd yesterday afternoon, a fellow named Jim turned up a bird he thought might be a Thayer's gull adult, but as we studied it we noted that it was rather large, had a large beak, had extremely restricted black in the wingtips - just edging the first two or possibly three primaries, I think - and, most significantly, had very faint and slight head streaking. I don't want to get caught up in a rush of identifying questionable birds as Nelson's hybrids, but it at least was a possibility. Definitely not the bird reported by Ben Fambrough and photographed by John Pogacnik, I might add. ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]