English edit

Noun edit

jackbird (plural jackbirds)

  1. A saddleback (Philesturnus) in its first-year plumage, once thought to be a separate species.
    • 1959, Robert Adams Wilson, Bird Islands of New Zealand, page 67:
      The young bird had the plumage of the saddleback, not the even chestnut of the jackbird, although its plumage was rather duller than that of the adult.