The Red-winged Blackbirds are back! Please excuse the quality of the pictures. It's raining and the water is beading on my rear window. It's also a little fogged up for some reason. But, I'm quite excited. I always think of these birds as the real harbingers of Spring, now that the Robins are here all through the Winter. We'll have more snow, some of our worst storms have occurred in March, but, now I know that Spring is coming, slow but sure.
22 comments:
No fair. You southerners are going to get spring about a month ahead of us. Boom & Gary of the Vermilon River, Canada.
Woo hoo...if they are at your end already it's only a matter of time to be up here, I can't wait to see one or a Robin!
Ha ha! Isn't it nice to be called "southerner" by Gary?! :)
I'm so glad those guys have finally reached you! I think some of the hordes have finally left us here and winged north. Maybe I can manage to keep a little seed around here! :)
BTW, I looked into cracked corn at the feed store - it's actually more expensive than hen scratch, even tho scratch has cracked corn in it. Feed store guy said cracked corn is more expensive because it has to go thru two processes. So I'll just keep feeding bird seed and hen scratch... But it was worth checking into!
corn in any form is through the roof.
But a handful a day is a worthy investment
Here red-wings are year round. They are starting to tune up now with on territory calls and challenges.
Soon the chickadees will be making their heart-sick "swweeeeeetie" calls and Pacific Wren ( winter wren) wil be "merrily tinkling" in the woods.
and my feet are itching for the first wildflower hike of the year... one long month
Gosh ! aren`t they unusual ?
I, too, think they are a sign of spring. The males, with their raucous calls, came back here about a week ago. We were glad to see them - even with the racket they made!
Louise thank you for sharing the pictures of the red-winged black birds...it has been years since I've seen one. They are beautiful.
I'm glad it was raining and not snowing. LOL
Hugs Madi and Mom
We don't see red-winged blackbirds at our house though they show up lower down around our pond. haven't seen any yet this year.
I believe we had a (big)bunch of them go through here a couple of weeks ago. They sure are pretty! I notice more birds now, with the additional bird feeders.
Here the blackbirds are all black and hang out at K-Mart, but at certain times of the year large flocks come to our place and hang out on the wires and sleep in the junipers over night.--Inger
Yay! The red-wings are back! You're really privileged to see them at your feeders, since the reason they come back so early is to compete for nesting sites, and once they find a good one, they hang around defending it, even if they have to go without eating for several weeks.
Spring is on her way, then. Over here March 1 means that Summer is on the way out and Autumn is getting near - my favourite season.
Oooh! It's nice to see a little splash of color along the snowy ground. Hopefully it's true and their appearance will bring Spring.
For us we know that Spring is finally here when the Barn Swallows arrive. That won't happen until late April up here, though.
~Lisa
Yay! You deserve a break from winter!
I miss the raucous screechy-squawk of the red-winged blackbirds. They are numerous in the Toronto area, but don't seem so common here on the east coast, maybe they prefer the fresher marshy areas farther upriver...
Hi Louise! So very nice to meet you!!!
and thank your for the lovely coment on my blog. I'm glad you enjoyed!
And yes he is really 28 years old now and he's a Morgan. He has about 130 babies in Canada and the Us. But now he's retired and living the good life.
Hope to see you lot's more!
Leontien
Like Gillian said, we don't see too many of them here. In fact, I've seen ONE, and that was up river. I think today's snowstorm dumped more than they had expected ... at least it looks like that now.
I'm glad for you that the blackbirds arrived. It could happen fast now, as March apparently is coming in like a lion :)
So happy to hear the Red-winged blackbirds are leading spring to us. Enough winter!
I'll be doing a dance the day that they arrive here. Woo hoo - spring is coming!
I was looking for the mountain bluebirds today. They're our harbingers of spring. They come up to our elevation during warm days in early spring and then retreat to the plains for the night. When I see the first one here, I rejoice!
It's *raining*! That's very odd, isn't it?
Two beauties...we have them here not yet though. Down the road there is a huge pond with cattails and the red wings live there...love it!
Oh wow! What a sight for winter-weary eyes!
A sure sign that spring is on the way.
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