Your friend has a Cardinal with missing feathers on its head. For some reason Cardinals & Blue Jays seem to have this problem often. Can be caused by mites. Usually does not hurt the bird, except for other birds making fun of it.
Susan

Thank you susan. I had it all wrong. It looked to me like perhaps a member of the pigeon family..small head compared to body size. But that made the beak a puzzle. I wasn't seeing the head as devoid of feathers.

For whatever reason, my above pic disappeared. Here it is again for anyone curious to know what it looked like.

I feel sure that Susan was right.
{{!gwi}}