Dear Tweetsters - It appears that the bird that my friend and I saw at
Seward Park on our walk this morning was a female Ring-necked Pheasant.

After hearing from two people suggesting that as a possibility, I looked
pictures up online and I believe it matches what I saw very closely
except for the length of the tail. My friend and I thought the bird we
saw had a shorter tail. However, I noticed when perusing the many
pictures of female Ring-necks at Google Images that when you look at the
bird sideways, the tail looks long. When you look at the bird from the
back, the tail can look considerably foreshortened. You can see two
pictures illustrating this difference at:

https://picasaweb.google.com/106724165563614020677/SewardParkMysteryBird?authuser=0&feat=directlink

More to the point, however, one of the people I heard from works at the
Seward Park Environmental Learning Center. (I will not mention his name,
because I did not ask his permission to use his name.) Here is what he said:

> There have been female Ringed-neck pheasants seen in Seward Park this
> season by some of our Naturalist staff. I suspect that this is your
> mystery bird.

I wanted also to include some information from Gene Hunn's new revised
2nd Edition of his Birding in Seattle and King County (highly
recommended!) about Ruffed Grouse and also Ring-necked pheasant in the
Seattle area:

> Ruffed Grouse were a fixture on the University of Washington campus in
> Seattle before 1911 (Miller and Curtis 1940:42). As of 1980, they
> could still be found as close to Seattle as Bellefields Nature Park
> and St. Edward State Park on the east shore of Lake Washington. Since
> 2008, they are found regularly only as close to Seattle as the
> Snoqualmie River Valley, Tolt-MacDonald Park and Carnation Marsh
> Sanctuary.

and

> RING-NECKED PHEASANTS and CALIFORNIA QUAIL were quite common residents
> of farm fields and the larger city parks through the 1980s. Both
> species have become very scarce now. King County CBC counts have
> dwindled to near zero since 2005. The Washington Deparment of Fish &
> Wildlife releases pheasants for the benefit of bird hunters -- as at
> Cherry Valley and Stillwater in the Snoqualmie River Valley-- but few
> persist. Pheasant season runs from late September through November. Be
> alert if birding in these areas in season.

It's nice to get this mystery bird cleared up so quickly!

Jane Hadley
Seattle, WA