There was a mysterious bird gleaning under my feeder just now -- 7:30 am, Wednesday, Cedar Ridge Road, New Paltz.
A generally featureless brown bird with a very noticeable thick black beak. The back was a more or less light brown, the wings darker. A head-on glimpse showed 4 or 5 narrow dark stripes running down the back. The chin and breast were light, the belly as dark as the back. It most resembled the female Blue Grosbeak in the new Peterson; didn't so much resemble the female Blue as portrayed by Arthur Singer. (I don't have another field guide handy.) In any event I didn't see the buffy wingbars. A Blue Grosbeak would be an unlikely bird, but whatever this was will be an unlikely bird. I couldn't get photographs. GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.
