Marsi: Red-winged blackbirds make slow return to Tier
Darwin's theories on the survival of the fittest could well have been inspired by red-winged blackbirds. These familiar spring songsters wrote the book on perseverance and adaptability.
I try to set my spring clock by the red-wings' return from their wintering grounds. If I'm lucky, they're back by the first week of March. Not this year, however, given a record-cold February and snow and cold weather still with us.
But they will come soon, perhaps migrants passing through. A flock of 50 or so will blow in around dusk on a stiff south wind. From a distance they'll appear as a wavering puff of black smoke. As they approach, the smoke will dissolve. Individual blackbird specks will emerge from its muddled cloud. Passing silently over a grain field or swamp, the flock will suddenly veer as one and drop to the ground.
The cacophonous din accompanying their arrival would serve as an appropriate soundtrack for Hitchcock's The Birds. One red-wing's gurgling, discordant hon-ker-ee is loud enough; multiplied by one hundred it transforms to a deafening roar.
After straightening their feathers and foraging for weed seeds, the first blackbirds of spring move on, to wetlands and swales farther north.
Several weeks later, toward the end of the month, resident males will arrive here to claim territories. This is the best time of year for red-wing watching.
You can find red-wings nesting just about anywhere. Although they love water and prefer wetlands, ponds and stream banks, the adaptable blackbirds have branched out in recent decades. Observers now find them nesting in brushy meadows, far from the nearest water.
That's how red-wings got to be America's most numerous native bird — by embracing new habitats. Politicians call this tactic expanding one's sphere of influence. In the past 70 years, red-winged blackbirds have done a lot of expanding.
The red-wing sphere around my place is down by a pond my family built in the mid-1960s. By the first week of April, there is always a cocky male down there, perched at the top of a pond-side weeping willow, daring man or beast to approach. There aren't any female blackbirds around yet, but the male doesn't care. He has staked out his turf. No trespassing allowed.
All I care to do is look in the water for the first sluggish bass of the season. All the blackbird wants is to harass me until I depart.
Approaching the pond, I am immediately attacked. The male red-wing flies to a position directly over my head and hovers there, flashing red epaulettes, clucking and whistling intensely. Every 10 seconds, he drops toward my head but swoops up just before making contact. Thank goodness he's a chicken at heart.
The situation doesn't improve much when a female arrives on the scene, usually around the middle of April. Although she does manage to get the male thinking of youngsters and family life, she can't change his opinion of me. I'm still naturalist non grata.
Relations hit bottom when the red-wings have finished their reedy nest, and four or five pale greenish eggs lie hidden in the cattails.
By this stage, the male is a bundle of nerves. Heading me off as I amble toward the pond, he threatens and screams. By the sound of it, you would think I was a mink or a weasel.
In response, I usually abandon ship, giving the red-wings sole possession of the pond for a week or so. Why cause a scene? In two weeks the young will be raised and scattered; the parents more receptive to company.
I would call that accommodating. I wish I could say the same for that grouch of a blackbird.
To view Rick's photos of red-winged blackbirds, their nests and eggs, visit rickmarsi.com.