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Saturday, March 7, 2015

Red-winged Blackbird

One of the signs of spring I enjoy most is the song of the Red-winged Blackbird. It may be territorial but to me it sounds like a love song. Maybe it's both. Yesterday morning near Esquimalt Lagoon I wandered into a group singing contest. About twenty males (one is pictured above) flitted around in the nearby blackberry brambles, all emitting piercing lovelorn warbles. There were lots of females around too and their disapproving chut chut chuts were like a counterpoint to the males' songs. It is sometimes claimed that Red-winged Blackbirds are the most numerous North American bird, numbering as many as 250 million pairs in good years. Head out to your nearest swamp or cattail marsh and you'll surely find some.

4 comments:

The Furry Gnome said...

They'll be one of our first birds of spring too, but they're certainly not here yet!

William Kendall said...

Great capture of this one. I haven't seen them here yet, but they'll be around, and for a few weeks they'll be extremely territorial.

JoJo said...

I love it! Mouth wide open! We have a lot of them too and they are quite noisy in spring. Starting to hear them a bit more now.

Stephanie said...

Beautiful shot!