Jan
06
Happy Birthday!
ByThere’s been an honest-to-goodness real and true Rusty Blackbird in Phoenix recently, a great rarity for Arizona; so many of us are now on a Rusty Blackbird kick, hoping to pick one out at our local patches, too.
The best Alison and I could do on New Year’s Day at Fort Lowell was this nice brownish male Brewer’s Blackbird.
It doesn’t even look much like a Rusty, but it was fun to see this bird anyway. The striking head pattern and brown on the body are probably signs of immaturity; if we use the calendar-year system to age it, it turned 2 on January 1, becoming an SY.
2 Comments
August 17th, 2010 at 6:52 pm
Have had a recent influx of what look to be Brewer’s Blackbirds, in our backyard at the feeder and in the birdbath! The distinguishing field markings were very interestng as we had never seen this bird before. We live in Kennesaw, Ga. Just north of Atlanta. what I saw that made me think BB,was the colors of molting juvenile. Could be wrong, but have never seen it before and the 3 books we have only one shows the BB to be the closest in appearance. The seems to be a whole lot of them,too. If you send me an email contact, I can scan the few pic’s we have and see what you think. Would really love to know what they are! I am assuming that never having seen them before, they are migrating. Would really appreciate any help! Thanks, Kim Lorton
August 18th, 2010 at 11:38 am
Dear Kim, Thanks for your note! What a great place you have to live and bird.
Brewer’s Blackbird is a very scarce winter bird in the southeastern US, and I’m wondering whether you might not be seeing Common Grackles instead. You can drop me an e-mail with the photos at birdaz ATgmail period com.
Rick