Please can you identify Black and grey bird with red head and white bars underneath

A bird between blackbird and pigeon in size. It has a red or pink head underneath shows white bars and longish tail. It's dive bombing my window bird feeder close to city centre in the northwest uk. Does anyone know what it is? It doesn't keep still long enough to photo!

  • I told them the bird you saw wasn’t in the photo So you don’t need to worry about that. Also we don’t actually know what the bird is yet and other people have other suggestions aside from woodpecker. we are still identifying the bird for you so don’t worry 

  • I've been following this thread with interest and I'm just as baffled as everyone else. As a matter of interest I've got the same window feeder as Stacyl and I've see birds as large as Magpies attempting to take food from it.

    Stacyl's comment about the very long tail triggered a thought. This is probably a bit left field but I wonder whether it could have been a Melanistic Pheasant trying and failing to grab food like sunflower hearts. 

    Probably not but you never know. It kinda matches your drawing  What do you think Stacy?

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    Tony

    My Flickr Photostream 

  • I wrote some names down earlyer. one of them was pheasant since lI thought it looked like a pheasant aswell. Only thing is with the pheasant is that they arnt black I thought if it were melonistic then It would be black but thing is iv never seen a pheasant with melanism before. Not that there isn’t any of course. also i don’t know if it has been documented in pheasants, and wasn’t sure. but now that you have mentioned it it might be but there’s possiblility it might not be aswell. Im still looking into what type of bird it might be but Im still not completely sure.
  • We are all clutching at straws. Unless the bird returns and Stacy can get a photo, I fear this is a lost cause.

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    Tony

    My Flickr Photostream 

  • I don’t think it’s a lost cause if he or she doesn’t manage to get a photo. Besides filming is another option If he or she doesn’t manage to get a picture of it
  • I would dearly love it to be the scarlet headed blackbird, Chris. Its got the headline though. I'm thinking possible non native bird too because if I can't find it and all of you can't it's got to be something like that! I've not seen it today but the little birds that usually so busy I have to refill the feeder 5 times a day! There's a peregrine falcon around here and i think that's why they avoid the feeder for a day or two normally. Its eaten a couple the little birds and i saw it kill a pigeon a couple of months ago! I wonder if this mystery bird is some kind of predator? Even if it is we still don't know what it is! It dive bombed to my feeder 3 times yesterday making a loud scuffle noise as its tried to land on it similar to the falcon when it dives for the birds that are eating here. But that's all the info I have. I'm really intrigued but I wouldn't be surprised if I never see it again and it remains 'the mystery bird' forever

  • I missed a bit- my bird feeder has barely had any visitors today
  • I also think k it looks like a pheasant type of bird but it wasn't as big, could it be a young one that's lost its bearing?
  • Ha ha I think it's possible! All the colours are similar, but in the wrong arrangement
  • I was looking up the sparrowhawks and found these drawings that could be compelling, the underside looked a lot like this