strange bird in my garden...

[fairkatrina]

can anyone help? I was letting the dogs out at 6.30am yesterday and I saw a strange bird in my garden. It was about the same size and shape of a crow, with a similar beak. It had a pale grey 'hood' like hooded crows have, but its body was a pale pinkish-grey. It also had coloured flecks at the end of its wings, in particular an irridescent blue stripe right at the bottom. Around its eyes it had a black circle with a white centre, with a black line running horizontally through. Does anyone have any idea what it was????

[poodicat]

jackdaw?

[ethandron]

it's a jay, google it and you'll be able to see photos of one.

[woofgang]

they are corvids like rooks and crows but shyer. They have a loud ringing cry

[fairkatrina]

aah it was a jay, I think I confused the black line from the beak with a line across the eye (it was early after all!) thanks everyone!!

[mrs.chappie]

Sorry to go off topic a little .... yesterday morning at around 5 am we heard tapping on our kitchen window. You cannot get round our back without going through the house, so we were puzzled as to what was tapping on the window.

It was a jackdaw. We get loads of birds in our garden and they are very tame. Mind you, we do feed them every day.

[fairkatrina]

we do too, our garden is like a bird sanctuary, we've got all the small birds, plus wood pigeons and collared doves, magpies, green woodpeckers a family of ravens (when they line up on the roof it looks like something from 'The Birds'!) and a sparrowhawk, but I've never seen a jay before!

[shivvy]

How strange fairkatrina because I saw my first jay in my garden yesterday too!

I had seen them in a local park previously but yesterday was the first time I have seen them in my garden. The blue is very noticible isn't it? In the park I often hear them before I see them!

It has been a good weekend for me and birds as I saw a buzzard on Saturday too!