Kitrushing

By Kitrushing

Common and keeps questionable company

This morning's backyard visitors, Red-Winged Blackbirds, are males. At least that's the way the coloration is described in the Audubon and Merlin guides. These males sport the beautiful read and yellow feathers at the tops of their wings. But, as evidenced by the weekend's near riot, the Red-Winged Blackbirds run with Common Grackles and Brown-Headed Cowbirds...   all are bandit bullies of the flight ways.  Nonetheless, they are still attractive.

"The red-winged blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus) is a passerine bird of the family Icteridae found in most of North and much of Central America. It breeds from Alaska and Newfoundland south to Florida, the Gulf of Mexico, Mexico, and Guatemala, with isolated populations in western El Salvador, northwestern Honduras, and northwestern Costa Rica. It may winter as far north as Pennsylvania and British Columbia, but northern populations are generally migratory, moving south to Mexico and the southern United States. Claims have been made that it is the most abundant living land bird in North America, as bird-counting censuses of wintering red-winged blackbirds sometimes show that loose flocks can number in an excess of a million birds per flock and the full number of breeding pairs across North and Central America may exceed 250 million in peak years. It also ranks among the best-studied wild bird species in the world.[2][3][4][5][6] The red-winged blackbird is sexually dimorphic; the male is all black with a red shoulder and yellow wing bar, while the female is a nondescript dark brown. Seeds and insects make up the bulk of the red-winged blackbird's diet "(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-winged_blackbird).

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