Dining at the Dryer

I've mentioned the local rice dryer several times. There are actually several in the area -- this one is called "Midway Rice Dryer". It has a shoot (actually a sort of pipe) that sticks out the side for the "exhaust" which is mostly rice hulls and some broken pieces. The blackbirds, of course, love the broken bits. So do the mice, and we sometimes see Hawks here.

This first picture is interesting. The black birds with the vertical stripes are Red-winged black birds. The black birds with brown heads are Brown-headed Cow Birds. I think the female bird among the RWBB's the other day was a female Brown-headed cow bird.

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.

Red-winged Black Birds

Driving down a dirt road that runs between old Hwy 90 and a flooded field, we startled a flock of red-winged blackbirds.

Admittedly, they startled me a bit as well, but I was able to capture something of their flight. The blurriness of the shot was probably inevitable, and yet, I think it highlights those red flashes that give this bird it's name.



I've wanted to get a good shot of a Red-winged blackbird for a while, but it's usually been a bit of a challenge. This fellow was very cooperative, though he wanted to have a few branches between us. He never did fly! He was proud of his shoulder patches (epaulets?) and was singing merrily (though not in this shot). ;-)