The first paragraph here suggests they might be scarce enough to be worth a note to the local recorder, particularly if there's evidence of breeding, depending on where Miss_Kitt's is.
Oh! I'll look into this, then.
Looking in my Sibley Guide, I'd say it's probably a brewer's blackbird. The eye color is a tad deceptive because of the lighting, and some female brewers have dark eyes. Brown-headed cowbirds have stouter beaks so I think I'd rule that out.
I still maintain that this is likely a juvenile scrub jay. Cover the head in the picture with your hand, as the head plumage is either not fully developed yet, or has recently been moulted. That's why the head looks so "rough", and not as smooth a most birds look. Apart from the beak, the head is not representative.
Now, compare with these pictures of (supposedly juvenile) scrub jays:
Number one
Number two
Number three
None of these have the same blue colour of the wings (though #1 comes close), but as that might be light-dependant, and the bird in davefoc's picture seems to be moulting the wing feathers anyway (1) look at the general plumage. Juvenile scrub jays seem to have the same grey-beige colour on the body feathers and head feathers as the bird in the picture, with the blue in the wings and tail appearing before the patterns of the head and chest (2).
This, coupled with the bill -- which certainly looks corvid (or jay-like, at least), though the nasal bristles (or whatever it is called) typical of corvids can't be seen (as opposed to
adults), but that may be developed later, or be missing in this individual.
The Brewer's picture Mako posted seems to be between moults, as there are no perceptible "roughness" of the head, no differences in colour among the flight feathers, and an over-all slickness of the plumage, and thus the two birds are not in a comparative developmental stage, but this does not mean that they are not the same species, of course.
However, look at the secondary/primary projection of the two birds. While Davefoc's bird in in moult, the old flight feathers are usually of the same size as the new ones, and the difference is basically degree of frayedness along the edges and mite and louse damage on the barbs (and sometimes the rachis) (3).
In Davefoc's bird, the secondaries (starting with the first blue feather from below) cover the primaries (all brown and stacked) almost entirely; the part of the primaries being visible is we were to stack all flight feathers on top of each other would be slight. However, in Mako's picture, though the wing is in a different position, we can see that the secondaries do not reach nearly as far out onto the outer primaries as in Davefoc's bird.
It is hard to see any more details in Mako's picture (do you have a larger version?), but unless secondary length in Brewer's and/or Scrub is highly variable, I think this may be a useful character in this case. Sphenisc's argument on the bill shape seem to hold for the two pictured birds as well, though the position of the head in Mako's picture makes a direct comparison difficult.
Here is a female Brewer's Blackbird for comparison, and
here's and
here's some juveniles. If we assume that these are representative, they invariably look different from davefoc's bird. The bill shape, for instance, is different, though the full difference of the bills is not immediately obvious, as davefoc's bird has its head turned slightly towards us. Nevertheless, the bill is longer, somewhat stouter, and does not have the same shape as these Brewer's. Further, in all pictures, the secondaries are much wider and blunter than davefoc's bird (see
here, for instance).
Based on these arguments, as well a a general feel for davefoc's bird (which doesn't "feel" like the Brewer's I saw in Bellingham), I would say that davefoc's is a Scrub Jay.
In addition to the flickers, I had a spot (using binoculars) of a woodpecker-ish bird I did not recognize. It was a tid smaller than a flicker, had dark grey-brown back with some black striping or ticking, and just a smide of red at the back of the top of the head. My best guess is an immature "hairy woodpecker" but I'm not certain at all. And, of course, no pictures...
In a moment of idiocy, I placed all my North American field guides in the box with my collection equipment, and sent it home by mail. It will arrive in about a month, and until then I have no reference material. Nevertheless, once I come back from the museum this afternoon, I'll have a look around.
Also: for those of you to whom this might be interesting, I looked through this summer's Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution today, and found a lot of interesting articles on bird phylogenetics. The most relevant ones would be:
- one on the Acrocephalidae (primarily
Acrocephalus and
Hippolais warblers) which I did some (uncredited) sequencing for, and which "overthrows traditional taxonomy"
- one on the
Saxicola torquatus complex
- one suggesting that the Sandwich tern
Gelochelidon nilotica is actually two species.
I haven't read any of these yet, though.
---
(1) I don't know how these birds moult, but there is a difference in colour between the primaries and most secondaries (brown) and the rest of the secondaries and the covers (blue), which suggests that the bird is in moult. Note that this could mean that the bird is not a juvenile, though.
(2)
This picture suggests that the white underside and blue patterns on the body appear before the head patterns are fully developed; I don't know the relative ages of all involved birds, though. Nevertheless, I could hazard a guess that they are probably all-grey-beige first, then assume the blue in the wings (and tail?) during the first moult (whenever that is), and first subsequently develop the blue in the rest of the plumage.
(3) Of course, moult can also happen between two different plumages, like in ducks, where the differences between them are more substantial, but unless the flight feathers are secondary sex characters, the size of the primaries and secondaries should be roughly the same in both plumages.
) and have observed brewers hanging around the food areas--this behavior is common at other zoos I've visited.
