[birding] Albinoish Cormorant in Finley Refuge

[Josh Standig]

On Monday, I saw a bird in the marsh at Finley near the Refuge  
Headquarters (looking from the blind at the end of newly opened  
Campbell Memorial boardwalk)  which sure looked to me like a  
cormorant sitting on a log, except that top 60% or so of it's body  
wasn't black as you'd expect, but was instead white! ...  with some  
darker streaks  and spotting in the predominantly while colored  
zone.  And its bill  was  orange, rather than black.

I couldn't tell which species of cormorant it was - it was a bit  
after sunset, the bird was fairly far away, and I wouldn't count rely  
on my modest birding skills to be able to make a reliable species ID   
on a cormorant, in any case.

I've never seen anything like this before - I guess it was a  
cormorant with genes conferring partial albinism (upper body  
albinism,)  but maybe someone on this list with greater birding  
expertise than myself, can suggest some other plausible explanations  
for this peculiar sighting.... some other species I've never heard of  
which looks kind of like a cormorant and which is known to have these  
sort of coloration patterns, maybe?

FWIW, I once saw a Brewer's Blackbird with a single white tail  
feather, in San Francisco, but that guy didn't compare for  
strangeness, with this bird on the marsh!