Thank you everyone for your feedback and suggestions on what this bird might have been. Everyone agreed that an eastern kingbird would be near to impossible given their habits - they should be south and they are not seed eaters. Suggestions from those who replied included spotted towhee, slate-colored junco, and black phoebe. I thought perhaps a gray jay - but that would have been much larger than what she described, not likely to be very white on the front, and not usual for this low elevation (as pointed out by John Tubbs). I showed my mother in law all of the species that were put forth and none seemed to fit what she saw. She is adamant that this bird had a strikingly white front. To what degree this may have been an artifact of being surrounded by 18 inches of snow, I'm not sure. When I showed her the picture of the slate-colored junco she indicated that the black from the head did not come down as far as it does on the juncos.
We are keeping the feeder stocked with seeds and setting more out on the snow around the area and keeping an eye out for it. I sure hope it comes around again. This was my first foray into Tweeter and I enjoyed checking the different messages that were posted recently and seeing some amazing pictures that have been shared. I also learned from one poster that I should be putting my hummingbird feeder out - I didn't realize we still had some this time of year.

Many thanks for the feedback.

Jennifer Wallin
jennifer_m_wallin at hotmail.com
Bellevue, WA
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