Calling any twitchers...

[papercorn2000]

I've just looked through my book and the best I can come up with is either a Nutcracker, or a juvenile male Blackbird. In their first year they are a darkish colour, but not black and have a dark beak.

It may have been the juvenile blackbird.

 

[laurence]

Not a starling. Do juvenile blackbirds have dark coloured beaks?

indeed they do... which can be confusing as you do expect a blackbird to have a yellow one. same as female blackbirds confuse people by being brown.

 

[Andy in Sig]

But juvenile blackbirds aren't black, are they? Don't they have thrush like spottings down the front and are overall a sort of rusty brown colour? Or are you saying that the male's plumage turns black and then the beaks go yellow?

 

[laurence]

they're a brown/black colour... depends on the time of year as it turns blacker as they get older. i did see a 'light black' one with a dark beak when i was in Edinburgh the other week

a friend also reported seeing one in his garden in Surrey a couple of weeks ago too

 

[papercorn2000]

Doesn't explain the "crest". Unless it was a juvenile blackbird trying to shock its parents. (It may have had a beak piercing as well!)

 

[laurence]

bad hair day?

 

[laurence]

woodpeckers don't have crests, as such.

 

[rich p]

As I said earlier, perhaps it was windy. I have seen false crests on birds from time to time in such weather.

 

[Arch]

I like the idea of a blackbird on a windy day. Saw a pigeon once, in the park, with a single downy feather sticking up on it's head, think it must have been pecked or something and the feather pulled out of place, and it looked so comic!

 

[laurence]

a crested tufted duck?

 

[Cycling Naturalist]

Try bird identifier on www.surfbirds.com (which unfortunately does not have any tanned Aussie lovelies on it)
If you cant find identifier on front page, google "bird identifier"

This process inevitably leads to your deciding that you definitely saw a bird, which on further research you find has never been recorded in Britain or the Western Palearctic before. Please don't be disappointed if the Rare Birds Panel express some scepticism when you submit your report. It's best not to preface it with "I was halfway through the second bottle of Glenlivet when I saw................."

 

[Arch]

This process inevitably leads to your deciding that you definitely saw a bird, which on further research you find has never been recorded in Britain or the Western Palearctic before. Please don't be disappointed if the Rare Birds Panel express some scepticism when you submit your report. It's best not to preface it with "I was halfway through the second bottle of Glenlivet when I saw................."

Famous Grouse, shurely....

 

[Fnaar]

That surfbirds website led me to believe it was Karina Petroni (not totally work safe)

 

[Cycling Naturalist]

That surfbirds website led me to believe it was Karina Petroni (not totally work safe)

The photo will assist papercorn when he makes his sighting report to the Rare Birds Panel.

 

[Aperitif]

That surfbirds website led me to believe it was Karina Petroni (not totally work safe)

Do you happen to know the breeding habits of that bird Fnaar?!