Friday, June 27, 2008

Mystery Bird

Can you help me identify this bird? I did not have any luck with my Michigan Bird Field Guide. Thank you!





12 comments:

Shelley said...

Bird girl - I think that might be it! I do have quite a few house finches in the yard....

John B. said...

I think it's a female or juvenile house sparrow with abnormal plumage. It's unusual for them to visit the seed bags, but I have seen them do it before.

sandy said...

Great photo!! Love the angle.

sandy

Shelley said...

John - now I'm thinking you're right! I've had 2 of them in my backyard - I'll have to try to get better photos.

Sandy - thank you!

kjpweb said...

Nice one - and I'd go with finch, too! Cheers, Klaus

RuthieJ said...

Hi Shelley,
I'm voting with John on the House Sparrow also

Richard said...

Just call it a UFB...unidentifed flying bird. Works for me..:-)

The Birdlady said...

Oh, now I can show off! When I recently posted a photo of a young bird who looked like a red-winged blackbird but who had a full whit collar and white down his tail, I had a reply from non other than Julie Zickefoose, who said it was a leukistic rw blackbird. Seems that is the term for lack of full pigmentation. Happy for my new knowledge, I wondered when it would come up again. I think it just did! My guess: leukistic house sparrow.

Shelley said...

Birdlady - thank you! And now I have a new word in my vocabulary - leukistic!

Anonymous said...

without a doubt this is a mutant house sparrow!! Isn't his fault he's part albino!!

Sandpiper (Lin) said...

Hi Shelley! It does have a very finchy beak, but I'm leaning toward a leucistic female house sparrow. Great picture, by the way.

Jessica said...

This time of year I am seeing a lot of young birds that I am trying to identify. It's so fun!