Female Red-Winged Blackbird

I mentioned a bird I was having a lot of trouble identifying yesterday. As you can see by the title of the post, this bird turned out to be a female red-winged blackbird! Some of you may not be surprised by this conclusion when you see the pictures today, but others are saying to yourselves, "That doesn't look like any red-winged blackbird!"

That's the same thing I thought! When I began trying to find the identity of this bird, I looked through two separate bird guides. And they both kept telling me that I had a sparrow. I couldn't deny that it did indeed look very much like a sparrow, but none of the many kinds of sparrow quite matched this bird. I knew I had a problem!

I had finally decided to write a post about this bird, saying it was a kind of sparrow that I couldn't quite identify. Something still kept telling me that there was something wrong though. I just wasn't satisfied with telling you all that I had a sparrow, but I didn't know which type it was. And I finally came to the conclusion, after looking at a few other small birds, that I wasn't even sure it was a sparrow at all!

Once again I decided that I had to change my idea for my post for yesterday. I was completely stumped as to what this bird was, so I decided that I couldn't write anything about it until I at least had some idea what kind of bird I was looking at. There are some things I'm still a novice at, but I could still try to be thorough with my research. So I waited.

I then decided I would write about another kind of bird I saw that day. It was the red-winged blackbird I showed you yesterday, and I was completely sure what they were. I also picked them because I coincidentally found these two kinds of bird in the same place; around the pond at the nature park.

So in an effort to find some tidbit of extra information on red-winged blackbirds, I went to whatbird.com to get something good to share. As soon as I got on the right page, I saw my mystery bird staring right back at me! The page said it was a female red-winged blackbird! That's when it all came to me. I already knew this!

I had just read this information on another blog only a few days before. I was so busy with normal life that I had forgotten! But this female really looks nothing like its male counterpart. And I found out today before writing this that these females are commonly mistaken for sparrows by novice birders, just like I did. At least I'm not alone.

So there it is. That's my story on how I just stumbled across the identity of a bird that was driving me crazy. It all makes sense now. The two types of birds were out there at the same place with each other. They kept mostly apart, but they also were not afraid to cross paths. Male and female. So different, but not the first type of bird I've seen that has these differences. Mystery solved.

Today over at Nature Center Magazine there is a bit of very strange and interesting nature news. This news tells of a breakthrough of the ideas of life on our planet!

Red-Winged Blackbird

Well, I decided to go back to the park where I accidentally slid down the hill last winter; the same park where I watched a huge tree fall recently. I wanted to go back not because of those incidents, but because of things like all of the turtles I saw, and other things I haven't had a chance to show you yet. And it's the best place to be all alone.

I went back there expecting nothing. In years past I haven't ever really seen a lot of animals there most of the time. It still sometimes has a magical way of bringing the strangest experiences to me just when I forget how much excitement that place can bring. Like the time six raccoons came after me. Really!!

This time it became a day for birds. I go in there most days without ever seeing any birds up close, but this time they seemed to pop out everywhere I went. When I went to the pond in the back, I was greeted by dozens of red-winged blackbirds. They seemed to be everywhere. Some were flying around. Some were perched in trees, watching me.

 I had to take the opportunity to get some pictures of these birds. I've seen them before back here, so I wasn't very surprised. But I've never seen so many at one time. I knew this would be fun. I had my camera and I was ready for them. But there was only one problem. The sky wasn't exactly cooperating.

Clouds had moved in to make it hard to get good pictures, so I thought I was going to have problems. Luckily I was completely wrong about that. I had something that neutralizes bad light. I hope to explain that one better one day soon, but not quite yet. So as you can see, I did okay with my blackbird pictures.

I guess I like these three pictures the most, but I have plenty of others. I'll probably show some of them pretty soon too. But for tomorrow I going to bring you something that was really confounding me. I found a bird that I really couldn't identify. That's why I started with this red-winged blackbird. Trying to identify the other bird had me searching for two hours before I wrote this. The solution came as a complete surprise and accident. You'll find out tomorrow, and maybe even laugh at me.

In other news, I'm beginning to find a little bit of time again, so I can concentrate more on what I like. Hiking, watching baseball, writing this blog, and reading yours. That's what I call relaxing.

And finally, over at Nature Center Magazine today, Emma has a new Nature Site Of The Week article up. This week's featured nature site is a place called The Jack Mountain Bushcraft Blog. If you haven't heard about bushcraft, or even if you have, go take a look at this; you'll be glad you did. Emma features the best of nature on the internet. You'll like this.