Possible Brewer’s Blackbird
In a large yard of pecan trees and grass, a blackbird shimmering with iridescent blue and green, and with a striking yellow eye, was feeding with a mixed gathering of Red-winged Blackbirds, Starlings, Robins, Chipping Sparrows, Eastern Bluebirds and House Finches. I think it was a male Brewer’s Blackbird, though I’m not completely sure. In field guides, at least, Brewer’s and Rusty Blackbirds look very similar in size and shape, and the males are both all-black – though the Brewer’s is supposed to be more iridescent, while the Rusty is a duller black, usually with a ripple of rusty color in its winter plumage.
It seemed to me this blackbird looked different in the way it stood and moved, slightly different in shape or character, in addition to the iridescence. But wishful thinking can be persuasive, I know, and since it’s much less common for us to find Brewer’s here, that might color my impressions. Brewer’s Blackbirds are more common in the west though they can be found here, while Rusty Blackbirds winter in the eastern U.S. Brewer’s Blackbirds are said to prefer open fields, pastures or suburban areas, while Rusties prefer wooded swamps. Here we have a little of both, plus an old pecan grove.
A large flock of blackbirds has continued to visit our neighborhood almost every day this winter, and I often stop to watch them. Lately Red-winged Blackbirds have been the most prominent members of the flock, but there are usually at least a few Rusty Blackbirds, as well as Common Grackles and some Starlings and Brown-headed Cowbirds. Even when most of the flock is not around, there often will be just a few stray birds like this, feeding with other species.
Two or three weeks ago I watched a blackbird flock spread out across the grass and trees in several yards, and among them found male and female Rusty Blackbirds – and some birds that puzzled me at the time, but now I think it’s very likely they were female Brewer’s Blackbirds. They appeared to be plain, grayish-brown birds with dark eyes, not pale, and not so attractively colored and patterned as a female Rusty is. At the time, I just thought maybe the light was bad and I couldn’t see them well enough.
Watching and studying a blackbird flock is a good reminder never to assume. At first glance, they all just look like blackbirds. But a closer look begins to show the several different forms the idea of “blackbird” can take – the big, glossy, noisy Common Grackles; the smaller, more slender, elegant Rusty Blackbirds, with subtle patterns of rust in the male and rust, brown, taupe, buff and gray in the female; and Red-winged Blackbirds, easily known by the red and yellow patches on the wings, and by their marshy con-ka-reeee songs; dowdy, stocky Brown-headed Cowbirds; speckled, yellow-billed Starlings – and, maybe, the iridescent blues and greens and fierce yellow eye of a Brewer’s Blackbird male, or the plain, unstreaked grayish-brown of the females.