[TN-Bird] Mystery bird: help with ID suggestions!!!

Hello Birders,
 
Just now in the Charlotte Park area, West Nashville, just east of the  
Cumberland River across from Bell's Bend, there was a bird on my deck that  
leaves 
me puzzled.  It is the size of a house sparrow or junco, with a  junco-white 
bill, buffy chest, light creamy to grayish belly to under the  tail,dark gray 
to 
almost-black top of head and sides of face leading into a  light brown nape, 
back, wings and tail  There was no noticeable  striping anywhere.  At first, I 
suspected it might be a very light  junco until I realized that it was 
bobbing up and down much in the manner  of a water ouzle/dipper, spotted 
sandpiper 
or LA water thrush.  Of course,  it is neither of those.  After all the bobbing 
up and down, it lit on a  deck chair and sat still for a few minutes.  I 
racked up several pictures,  but they are pretty terrible in that I had to 
shoot 
through a section of glass  that I haven't had time to clean since the last 
storms.  The behavior is  what got to me, or I'd simply chalk it up as a 
variant 
junco.  Perhaps it  was a junco and had something "stuck to it" that caused it 
to bob up  and down trying to shake it off.  I did not see any "debris" of 
any kind on  the bird or anything fall from the bird before it stopped bobbing 
up and  down.  The bird was alone and flew off to land on top of the basketball 
 backboard at the end of my driveway, then down into the depths of shrubbery  
between my property and a neighbor's some 75 feet away.  My other juncos  
usually fly off in the opposite direction or up into the hackberry  trees above 
to "rest" between meals.
 
If any of you have any ideas, please let me know.  I'd appreciate any  input 
as to this bobbing behavior.  It didn't do it just once or twice; it  kept the 
behavior going for almost a full minute.  A junco with a bad case  of 
hiccups, maybe?????????  I am baffled, but I guess it probably is a  "jumpy 
junco."
 
Dee Thompson
Nashville, TN

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