Help Identify This Mystery Bird

02/13/2013

Well, animal lovers, I've got a bit of a mystery here and can use your help trying to figure it out.

My friend Ryan had an odd animal sighting and sent me the following message on my Facebook page:

"Hi David, I need help in identifying a bird I saw today. I can't find it online. It was about the size of a robin/blue jay. It was perching on a phone wire and perched vertically with the tail straight below it.

-Gray body with a yellowish/gray belly. 
-Black head
-crest
-black "chin strap" that connected to black on head
-black wings
-white stripe on shoulder
-black tail with white portion on bottom inside part of tail
-black beak, pointy and long-ish

It's something I've never seen before and it's driving me crazy that I can't identify it! I'll sketch you a picture if it'll help. I thought it might be a gray jay (whiskey jack) but they don't seem to have the crest or the chin strap. Also thought it might be some kind of titmouse but they all seem too small.

Let me know if you have any idea what it could've been. Thanks!"

Nothing immediately sprang to mind that could be seen in Ottawa, Canada (where Ryan had the sighting), at this time of year, that had all those features. That said, I'm not an ornithologist, and I don't claim to have an encyclopeic knowledge of every single bird species out there.  

So I went to the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology's "All About Birds" webpage and to my Peterson Birds of North America app, and combed through species profiles trying to figure out what this bird might be.  

Again, nothing.  

So I asked Ryan (who is an amazing artist) to do a sketch of what he saw.  This is what he provided:

Drawing by Ryan Browne.

What do you think?  Other than the color scheme, it looks identical to a blue jay.  I'm wondering if Ryan got lucky and spotted a blue jay with an odd mutation causing its colors to be different than normal, or even a blue jay hybrid of some kind. Or perhaps this is just a Canadian species with which I'm not familiar.

Anyone out there ever seen anything like this before?  

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Comments

[Manticore Pinion]

Nice tracing he did there.

http://irvingparkgardenclub.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/blue-jay1.jpg

[David Mizejewski]

@Manticore Pinion -- Uuuuuhhhm, no.

All artists use references, and it's quite possible that Ryan Browne did look at a photo reference of a blue jay in profile when creating his sighting sketch. Nothing odd about that.

That doesn't mean he traced it.

If you clicked on the links to Mr. Browne's work that I put into the post (3 times), you'd see that he is quite capable of sketching a bird without needing to trace.

Here it is again, since you seemed to have missed it. http://ryanedwardbrowne.tumblr.com/

[Manticore Pinion]

Mmmhmmm.

Either way it is a Blue Jay. He probably saw it in such a light that the dark melanin pigment of the feathers wasn't obscured by the reflected blue light from the microstructures of the feathers.

[David Mizejewski]

That, at least, you might be right about. Based on the drawing it's clearly identical to a blue jay except for the coloring. I think it's more likely due to what you describe (inability to see the reflected blue light due to the angle) than a mutation or hybrid. We'll probably never know for sure.

[ryan browne]

Hi Manticore Pinion. I'm the artist who drew this picture, Ryan Browne. I'm also the artist to whose tumblr account is linked to in this article. I used that image you posted as photo reference for my drawing. I did not trace it. I don't trace my drawings. I'm assuming you didn't print off equal sized images of the photo and my drawing and then place them one on top of the other to see if they lined up perfectly which would be evidence of tracing. I suggest you try doing that before you make false accusations that can affect an artist's reputation and livelihood. You owe me an apology (although I have a feeling one won't be forthcoming).

And no, it wasn't a blue jay in low lighting.

[John E Herrington]

How about a sapsucker in winter plumage.?

[Dennis]

This appears to be a gray jay. They are quite common in northern Wisconsin.

[kilo9r]

I've seen this bird many times in Canada and thought it was called a Whiskey Jack, but google shows me a different kind of bird when I search that.
If you find out, I would be interested in knowing it's true name.

[Denise]

Could it be a Black-Crested Titmouse or even a type of Waxwing?

[lg313]

i believe that this is just a blue jay with a color mutation for example it could be lacking certain chemicals such as phaeomelanin or eumelninor it could be partly leucistic or fully leucistic or it could be as simple as a blue jay with abnormal coloration. with out a doubt it is rare but just because it is doesn't mean that we should capture it and isolate it from it's home and keep it in captivity for the rest of its life and breed this new species for hover long, becuase we would ruein another speceis of bird like the Do-Do.

[Miir Hein]

Me parece que el ave publicado podria ser un cardenal amarillo...