Zuni bird id - not an owl

This generally looks like the birds done by Nelli Bica, but as far as I can tell she did only owls. And this does not look like an owl (different eyes and beak). Can anyone ID the type of bird, or know of similar Zuni birds of whatever species this is? Or perhaps know the history of Zuni pottery birds - assuming decorative only? This one seems to have enough age to be mid-century or earlier.

 

partridge? (or grouse - not sure of the difference)

 

they taste different !!

 

I agree it looks old, but is there anything clearly indicates that it's Zuni pottery? Might it be Mexican? It looks more like a parrot beak. On pieces with three 'legs' to stand on, one is usually the tail feathers. Yours seems to have three legs.

 

maybe it's a boy bird....

 

I was careful not to indirectly hint at that...

 

Anything is possible, but I see no history of Mexican pottery like this. And this looks to have some authentic age, so not a recent Mexican production fake (if they are even faking Zuni pottery; I don't know).

Below are some pics of Zuni owls from Cowans auction. They also have some other birds, turkey, chicken and rooster but they look less like the one I showed at the top than the owls do.

 

I looked for birds that overlapped the Zuni reservation area, and found two that might be possible. A prairie falcon, and a greater roadrunner. Maybe?

(great, so we can't display png files? I'll look for alternatives)

 

There's owls and turkeys and other such birds from Acoma too, and the color scheme on yours is close to those ones too.

 

That’s a good thought. I hadn’t noticed Acoma birds, but some are similar to this. Located not very far to the east, also in New Mexico. Colors may be whiter in the Acoma work, but I think it would take someone familiar with both tribal potteries to distinguish. Thanks!

 

And I meant to add that if yours is a parrot, parrots are a very common motif painted on Acoma pottery.