Pictured above is perhaps my favorite bird, the female red-winged blackbird. She strikes me as timid by nature – she’s not often seen. The photos here are a treasure to me, taken in two sessions in the last week. Though at first she might appear not much more than a small, dull brown bird, a study of her reveals a petite bird with striking lines, a lovely eye mask, and just a hint of the red (a rust colored stain) her mate boldly displays at the shoulder. And this bird is highly focused on her task of protecting her nest and its contents.
Based on my observation, each season, the red-winged blackbird males arrive several days before the females. The male is black, except for a brilliant red flash on his shoulder and a strip of creamy yellow that runs along the lower edge of the red. Depending on the season and things about mating that I’ve not determined, his red is more or less visible. For the past week, his red has been very evident. These birds seem to have established their nesting area, as always, low in the reeds in one corner of the pond.
I don’t know if the days of coupling are passed for this season, or still ahead. In the photo below (taken today) it is clear this pair is posturing for attention. The female (comparatively a dull brown to the male’s striking black and red) holds a statuesque posture as the male shows his bilateral red and calls to her.
The male is always visible, displaying a strong and confident manner. Several males will perch in the scrub along the pond’s shore, and they click, whistle and call raucously to each other (or to the females?), and they spar in the air over the nesting area. All the while, a flicker here or there, deep in the reeds, might catch my eye, making me aware that the females are present, in a far more low-key way.
Pictured here are some lovely images of the female red-winged blackbird. I’m so happy to have them to share! Most were taken today.
Click on any image and scroll from start to finish, and back again!
Click on image above and spend a couple of minutes viewing a 68 image slide-show on YouTube. You’ll see male Red-winged Blackbirds displaying their skills – to establish territories and to win the attention of a female. Use your back arrow to return to read the post. The slide-show includes The Beatles instrumental “Flying.”
Can it really be that when my eyes are closed I clearly see a tiny Red-winged Blackbird, like an image on a screen, on the back of my eyelids? I’m not talking about my mind’s eye. I’m talking about a phenomenon that occurred this week after hours of – over the course of two afternoons – shooting pictures of a pair of male Red-winged Blackbirds as they soared and stalled, tumbled and rolled, sped and spun, sparring their way to the approval of the female, who sat hidden in the pond’s reeds below them.
Each night as I closed my eyes to sleep, there was the bird, a tiny fleck of a thing, red marks in the crook of its wings, visually real in the darkness of my shut eyes. I wondered if I’d concentrated so hard on following the bird in my camera lens, that I’d burned the image into the retina of my eye. And from there, it reflected onto the back of my eyelids.
The picture taking was the most intense exercise I’d ever done with my camera. It is not a cliche to say that I communed with nature during those photo sessions. The best shots came when I’d remember to breathe, to relax, to follow the chi of the seconds and moments that played out before my eyes.
Since I was using a 200 lens, the frame area was small and the birds were often close to me – closer than fifteen feet in fact. And it’s not a tall tale to say that on the second day they came into my space, buzzing me a mere four feet from my head. I laughed at their bold play with me, and I think they laughed at me stumbling, literally, as I tried to keep them in focus in the camera’s lens. Impossible. And they knew it.
Humans like to think of themselves as separate from nature. We’re not. We are in the weave of earth’s life. And if we avail ourselves to the feathered ones, to the four-legged ones, if we prove to them that they can trust us again, they come to us. In fact, at the pond about which I write in this blog, I have seen time and again that they are waiting for us, watching us, looking for a sign that we want to know them.
When I was a child, a younger brother and I got a notion to feed birds from our hands. For several summer mornings, we rose early – with the birds – and climbed a tree and sat perfectly still and silent as we held out our bird food filled palms. In time, chickadees came within feet of us. And on the third day, a bird sat on my brother’s hand and ate from it.
Two years ago, at the end of a season and just before it left its summer habitat, a Heron, who had incrementally become less shy of me, stood on the path I walked around the pond and let me come within ten feet of it and take many photos of it. I had no bird food with me.
With 68 images, an instrumental by the most popular band ever, and a couple of hundred words in this blog, I don’t come close to what Wallace Stevens says in his poem “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.”
I Among twenty snowy mountains, The only moving thing Was the eye of the blackbird.
II I was of three minds, Like a tree In which there are three blackbirds.
III The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds. It was a small part of the pantomime.
IV A man and a woman Are one. A man and a woman and a blackbird Are one.
V I do not know which to prefer, The beauty of inflections Or the beauty of innuendoes, The blackbird whistling Or just after.
VI Icicles filled the long window With barbaric glass. The shadow of the blackbird Crossed it, to and fro. The mood Traced in the shadow An indecipherable cause.
VII O thin men of Haddam, Why do you imagine golden birds? Do you not see how the blackbird Walks around the feet Of the women about you?
VIII I know noble accents And lucid, inescapable rhythms; But I know, too, That the blackbird is involved In what I know.
IX When the blackbird flew out of sight, It marked the edge Of one of many circles.
X At the sight of blackbirds Flying in a green light, Even the bawds of euphony Would cry out sharply.
XI He rode over Connecticut In a glass coach. Once, a fear pierced him, In that he mistook The shadow of his equipage For blackbirds.
XII The river is moving. The blackbird must be flying.
XIII It was evening all afternoon. It was snowing And it was going to snow. The blackbird sat In the cedar-limbs.
Today was a picture perfect day. As I walked around the pond, with the intention of getting exercise, one bird after another caught my eye. And though it didn’t make a stop at the pond, a Great Blue Heron flew directly overhead. Above is a single shot of the bird. And here is a Picasa slide show of the same bird. You can click on this slide show image to see it nearly full screen.
I think this will be the year I am able to post with pride photos of the Red-winged Blackbird. Here is today’s assembly of shots. (Remember that you can click on any image to enlarge. Then use your back arrow to return to the post.)And posing for my pleasure, a male Cardinal enjoys the sun. With today’s distractions, I’ll try again tomorrow to exercise.
SilverLining 