Bird ID - with little to go on

I don't know if anyone would have suggestions but...

Yesterday I saw a bird in flight, flapping wings, not darting like a woodpecker, black body and white wings. It was so odd it caught my attention but I was driving and couldn't stop to watch. That's all I have to go on. Any thoughts?

Could you tell how large it was? I googled for birds of MN and found this one, the Black-billed Magpie: http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=images+of+black+billed+magpie&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=aH-2S4G6DoKM8gSEoM3qAw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CBgQsAQwAA

edited to say: Well, I guess that's not a match, it has black wings. I'm still googling.

This message was edited Apr 2, 2010 7:40 PM

Another possibility is a Leucistic Blackbird. Here's a photo of a Leucistic Red-winged Blackbird I found while googling: http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.carolinabirdclub.org/gallery/images/rwbl_buckler_3936.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.carolinabirdclub.org/gallery/rwbl_buckler.html&usg=__8NQ8dPl1673oZam99NabS1XMlmA=&h=500&w=331&sz=127&hl=en&start=27&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=ZRLpqbiVRnxzUM:&tbnh=130&tbnw=86&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dimages%2Bof%2Bleucistic%2Bblackbird%26start%3D18%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26ndsp%3D18%26tbs%3Disch:1

Looks like that one hails from Britain. Interesting bird!

This says the Black-billed Magpie is found in parts of MN:

http://www.nrri.umn.edu/mnbirds/accounts/BBMAa2.htm

and here: http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Black-billed_Magpie

It sure is a gorgeous bird!

Good work! It could very well have been this bird. I was trying to think how to talk about its size - it seemed to be smaller than a crow which would fit.

I hope you get to see one again. Maybe you can get a photo to post.

I've sent your links on to our local birders to see if they have anything to add. Thanks again. I just love it when I see something new-to-me!