Bathing Black Birds and an onlooker

Today we found the red-winged blackbirds at "bath time". They were bathing in a partially flooded rice field, then flying into the trees to preen and dry off.


I thought I would take the opportunity to get pictures of the whole "blackbird family". To the left is the male -- singing merrily. Did you know that in most, if not all birds it's the male that "sings"? Females have calls and both will call alarms, but only the male actually "sings".

We were out taking pictures with out the bird book, so my original thought was that this was a juvenile bird. But it's most likely the female, though a juvenile might look similar (I think).


I saw this bird and thought it was the female blackbird, but after looking it up and seeing the bird above was the female, I was a bit confused.

The beak is slightly shorter, and the tail has a double rounded end. I'm not sure where it fits in, but it was in the same trees with the blackbirds.