One of the biggest things about the Biggest Week is getting to run into old friends and new at every turn. Among many others, it was fun to get to see our Nebraska friend Phil, with whom I’d last birded in Arizona last summer.
Not much of a coincidence, of course, running into a birder at a birding site like Magee Marsh — but get this.
A few days ago, as we drove across Minnesota, I saw a red-winged blackbird perched on the back of a white-tailed deer. That struck me then, and strikes me now, as an unusual sight, and I asked whether anyone else had witnessed such a thing.
In response, an e-mail from Phil.
I saw your blog about a RWBB on the back of a [deer]…. Anyway, I have never seen this………until this year at Magee Marsh. When walking the boardwalk by the Maumee Bay Hotel, I saw a RWBB on the back of a deer. Got a photo of it just as it was taking off. Interesting that all the combined years that we have been birding that we would both have this first time experience at the same time. I assume that this might be somewhat regular behavior.
Photograph: Phil Swanson
Astonishing. Thanks, Phil!
