My wife gasped when she saw this bird at the feeder on our deck this morning, here in Minneapolis. It was about 11 am on a bright, sunny day. This is a mature urban forest environment of elms, lindens, maples, oaks and so on. There are two large lakes in the neighborhood, home to ducks and geese and, in recent years, a pair of loons or two. A large wooded cemetery nearby has an adjacent bird sanctuary. For a city setting, it's pretty bird-friendly.
We had a good look at the blue bird for about a minute from twelve feet away. I was just going for the camera when the bird flew off.
What we saw was a blue bird with yellow beak, finch sized. It had irridescent blue body feathers and a hint of gray in its wings. The beak was very yellow, not yellowish gray. We didn't notice the color of the legs and feet.
Later in the day we had a male indigo bunting at the same feeder. It had decidedly gray wings and a black beak.
We are not birders per se but we enjoy having little birds around. Our copy of Sibley's guide doesn't include this little blue guy. The web photos of that South American yellow-beaked blue finch don't show the iridescence that we saw in the yellow-beaked bird today.
That the bunting would show up on the same day at the same feeder is curious and of course makes me wonder if we have some kind of exotic bunting family unit passing through.
I understand the skepticism of those who suggest the mystery bird's beak just looked yellow but really wasn't. All I can say is that the color combination was striking, and that there was nothing unusual about the lighting conditions.
The feeder normally attracts purple finches, goldfinches, sparrows and
(less often) cardinals. It has black oil sunflower, millet, striped
sunflower and safflower seeds.
Spring is about three weeks later than usual here, FWIW.
