Sunday afternoon a flock of a thousand or more Blackbirds moved through our neighborhood, including many Red-winged Blackbirds, Rusty Blackbirds, Common Grackles \u2013 and maybe Brewer\u2019s Blackbirds. These were a brilliant iridescent green that stood out among all the other birds. Their heads showed a sheen of purple, and they had pale yellow eyes and rather long tails. Also, there were drab, grayish individuals with dark eyes that looked like Brewer\u2019s females.<\/p>\n
It was a beautiful day \u2013 cold, clear, with an intensely blue sky and brisk wind. I heard the Blackbird gathering as I was walking, and at first they were in trees in an area where I couldn\u2019t see them well, but as I headed back toward home, they began flying over me in waves, settling on grassy yards and in trees, then flying up again with a hollow whoosh of wings each time as I got too close. There were so many that it was exhilarating just to stand as they flew over, settled, and flew again \u2013 hundreds of birds in restless motion all around me, calling in several different raspy, creaking voices.<\/p>\n
Once, as three or four dozen Red-winged Blackbirds flew up suddenly together, their red wing-patches all flashed in synchrony \u2013 a stunning sight.<\/p>\n
In one area where many Blackbirds had settled on pale tan grass, there was a small group foraging together, with shimmering emerald-green plumage. I watched especially two of the males that were closest to me, and they seemed to have a habit of frequently cocking their tails up just slightly and quickly.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t fully trust myself on this identification, because I might have been fooled by the light, and I\u2019ve never seen a Brewer\u2019s Blackbird before, and I think they are still considered uncommon in this area. But on the other hand, their coloring, posture, and shape was distinctly different from either the Rusty Blackbirds or Red-winged, both of which were in the same flock. I\u2019ve posted the sighting on a local birding site and am hoping another birder might be interested in coming by to check them out \u2013 and maybe confirm it, or not. This large flock of Blackbirds has been around our neighborhood often recently \u2013 just about any time of day \u2013 though it\u2019s impossible to predict exactly where they\u2019ll be or when.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sunday afternoon a flock of a thousand or more Blackbirds moved through our neighborhood, including many Red-winged Blackbirds, Rusty Blackbirds, Common Grackles \u2013 and maybe Brewer\u2019s Blackbirds. These were a brilliant iridescent green that stood out among all the other birds. Their heads showed a sheen of purple, and they had pale yellow eyes and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}