In the month that I didn’t visit Farmington Bay it went from having a few kestals and ducks to being filled with birds.  I saw avocets, Kildeer, ibis, pelicans and even a pheasant!  And Yellow-headed Blackbirds.  It’s funny that the birds know it’s spring because a few minutes after I took the picture below it started snowing.

gray spring

The Yellow-headed Blackbird looks rather mournful in this picture but he was singing his heart out.

I also saw blackbirds at a new birding location: Kaysville Pond.  This guy was so worked up.

photo by Jon

You tell it bird!

They spend their time most frequently in the cattails.  They don’t seem to mind when the cattails start to drift, leaving them splayed like this:

There is wide variation in the coloring of the head.  Here’s the female who is possibly gathering material for a nest?

Lastly, on Antelope Island we saw a bush full of mostly Yellow-headed Blackbirds but also Cowbirds on the right, a female Red-Winged Blackbird on the bottom left and some kind of sparrow above and to the right of the Red-Winged Blackbird.

photo by Jon

To being completely frozen

With winter comes swarms of blackbirds.

You may have seen in the news recently that blackbirds were found dead in Arkansas, Louisiana, New Zealand and other places.  The Arkansas deaths were blamed on fireworks.  Since so many blackbirds fly in groups during the winter, the fireworks scared a huge number of them and they died as a result of flying into things.  This is absolutely tragic, but as Birdchick points out, many more birds die from flying into glass windows.  So it’s more important to raise awareness about the windows than pretend that birds dying is a sign of the apocalypse, especially when a lot of the killing is done intentionally by the government.

On to happier subjects, here is a Red-Winged Blackbird from last April.

They love to grab onto reeds and cattails.

He was really into his mating song.  Here’s the flared tail.

I find it interesting that they have all those speckles on their back.  From the side they seem to be all black except for the fancy epaulets.  After the tail flaring, he sings

and sings.  Birdchick has a video of Red-Wing Blackbirds singing here.

If I were a female Red-Winged Blackbird, I’d be very impressed.

Although you can find many birds in the water, including the occasional Yellow-Headed Blackbird,

the real action is in the grass

This is a male Yellow-Headed Blackbird.  Check out his song, it sounds to me like a collision of large mechanical objects.

and these are females

Female blackbirds are always brown, but this is the first type I’ve come across that also includes the color in the name.  For example, the female Red-Winged Blackbird has no red.  Yellow-Headed Blackbirds appear in Utah around March and they stay visible all summer.

The first time I saw one was when we lived in California.  I had opened the curtains in the living room and on top of this bright green plant was a yellow bird trying to eat buds off the plant.  It was amazing!  I had never seen a large native bird with such startling colors.  Being a blackbird, these guys are seriously unappreciated by the birding community, but I’m always excited to see them.  They make any scene look better.  I leave you with a picture of Yellow-Headed Blackbirds from Deseret Ranch:

The Shorelands Preserve is a giant marsh where they put planks down so that people can walk into the marsh and observe birds without being covered in muck.  Do you see the structure in the middle of the picture?  The thing that looks like a pirate ship?  It’s a viewing tower.  You can see everything from up there.

There were several birds in flight, such as Sandhill Cranes.

and White Pelicans

White Pelicans are gorgeous!  I can’t wait to show you a close-up picture.  I took some at Farmington Bay, but it was through a bus so the pictures were too blurry.  The most interesting picture was of a crow stealing an egg from the Red-Winged Blackbirds.

Isn’t that sad?  A lot of people don’t like Red-Winged Blackbirds because they displace cute and delicate birds, but I’m still sad for the parents.  The blackbirds didn’t chase the crow for very far, presumably because there were still eggs in the nest.  Ah well, if it has to happen, at least I got the picture.

Spring was in full swing last week.  The Red-Winged Blackbirds were singing, the Black-Billed Magpies were calling and the Canada Geese were nesting.

I suspected that the goose was nesting and then got confirmation when these obnoxious people took their dogs off their leashes and the dogs forced the goose off the eggs.  We stayed very far away from the eggs, I would never risk interfering with nesting for the sake of pictures.  These pictures only look close because I’m using a 500 mm lens.

They’re very large eggs.  At least twice as large as chickens.  The geese came back to the nest once the horrible dogs walked away.

We actually have a lots of Canada Geese in Utah.  I even see them flying over the house sometimes.

Do you want to see some flying pictures?  I have tons.

How about from the side?

Or perhaps in flight, with the primary wing feathers tipped up at the edges.

The Draper marshes also had a swimming animal.  Is this an otter?

Update: wise people in the comments have pointed out that this is actually a beaver, so I will stop referring to him as an otter.  Thanks Mom and Tiffany!  I can tell you about birds, but I am completely out of my element with mammals.

He almost looks like he’s smiling, though, doesn’t he?

Everything looks better with mountains in the background.

The above pictures were taken at Ogden Waterfowl Management Facility.  The one below is from Brigham City, Utah, the coldest place in the world (or so it seemed).  Ogden is a mere 26 miles south of Brigham City and yet there was only a thin layer of snow on the ground and exposed grasslands.

Although it’s hard to see, these are red-winged blackbirds.  Sometimes you can’t even tell until they take flight.  Then, there is a flash of red.

There are also Tricolored Blackbirds, but their wings have a small yellow border that is edged in white.  Red-Winged Blackbirds, on the other hand, have more of a yellow square on the bottom and a red top.

They look very dignified in this tree.

These blackbirds are commonly found in marshes.  Back in California, though, there was a huge group of them that lived in some grass next to the ocean.  I always enjoyed watching the swirling masses.

In this picture Conner is in front. Conner and Audrey are inspecting the nest box together. It’s already been chewed to proper proportions by Conner.