Gray Bird, Black Bird, Blackbirds

There’s nothing like a walk in Reid Park or Fort Lowell to break up a day at the office. This time of year, both localities are full of flashy, colorful birds, but somehow I always find myself lingering over the icterids.

Brewer’s Blackbird is exclusively a winter resident here in southeast Arizona, where it tends to occur in feedlots, pastures, and city parks. They are at their brightest right now, the dull edgings of winter worn away and the males’ eyes glinting with thoughts of the season to come.

Even the females, like this one, have a certain elegance as they high-step it across the sidewalks and through the cow patties.

More dramatic are the Great-tailed Grackles, stunningly beautiful bruisers of parking lots and other wastelands. The males are busy tuning up their squeals and trumpets for spring, but the females have been strangely inconspicuous recently: perhaps already on the nest?

Unlike Brewer’s Blackbird, Great-tailed Grackle is a permanent resident–but like so many Tucsonans, a recent arrival. The species has just celebrated its 70th anniversary in the state, and its appearance in 1935 was, in retrospect, one of the first sorties in its continuing campaign to take over the continent.