Winged Morning Fun

Yesterday, after taking Val to work due to some MS symptoms and doing some other Election Day oriented stuff, I found Walker Evans in an excited state and heard a swoosh upstairs.
It turns out that we had a winged visitor flying around upstairs from our bedroom to the media room, through the hall to the bathroom and so on. The bird, about a foot long with dark feathers and white spotting/speckling, then flew downstairs, with Walker running behind.
After several minutes of trying to but not catching the bird with an old Buffalo Bills' blanket (neither Val nor I know where the blanket came from), the bird stayed in the bedroom and tried to fly out the closed windows, and then flew into Val's closet for a bit, with Walker following it inside. I opened a window, but it didn't sense it open and stayed inside.
The bird then came out, tried one more bedroom window escape, and flew to the bathroom, where it tried to fly out that window; I opened it, closed the bathroom door and waited; checking back a couple of minutes later, the board was finally gone. Walker looked disappointed.
I looked up the bird and talked to people about it; some first said a grackle, but the photos did not support the speckling at all. Finally, Barb Elliott pointed out that it sounded like a starling with its winter plumage; I looked it up, and the photo perfectly matched the bird I saw.