Shout-out to Birders on My FL

[akirlu]

I saw an unexpected bird this morning. I was walking past the creek on my way to the train, and off at the far end saw what I thought was an unusual duck on the freshly mown verge -- we mostly get mallards in the creek, but there are a few other transients and at least one hybrid -- but slowly realized that the head was too small and the body was the wrong shape. I got as close as I could given that I don't give myself a lot of extra time to get to the train and she (?) wasn't at all thrilled with me walking toward her. I didn't have time to dig out the camera alas, so all I can do is description.

So, what I saw was a dark bodied bird, shaped like something somewhere between a wild turkey hen and some sort of grouse -- small head, neck seemed a bit short for a wild turkey. The feathers of the body and wings were quite dark but speckled with tiny polka-dots of white. The breast had a stripe of white running up it too, and around the eye was white -- though the white around the eye seemed to be bare skin rather than feathers -- and there were very short red wattles running just under each side of the bottom of the beak. I can't spot any grouse or other wild fowl that look right in the Northwest guides online, and I would guess it was a wild turkey except that the feathers seemed softer and fluffier than that and that speckled white on dark pattern seems totally wrong. Anybody have any guesses?