Howdy,

My sister who lives in Everett had a strange visitor to her yard this
morning. She called to tell me that she and her roommate spotted a
"chicken-like" bird on their back fence. It was a mottled gray and
brown, with a black, vertically held tail. They did not see a grayish
band on the tail, as in the local version of Blue Grouse, but lighting
could have hidden that I suppose. Her roommate thinks she may have seen
a reddish "comb" on its head. Their house is in a typical modern
subdivision, but their back fence separates them from a small park with
a brushy wetland and other brushy areas, but is mostly open. Short of
some sort of escaped exotic, what else could it be?