Aging My Way
I saw six yellow-headed blackbirds last week. They were flying around Tucson’s Lakeside Park with a flock of Brewer’s blackbirds that they were bullying, shoving the smaller birds around whenever a tiny morsel of something to eat was found.
I guess some birds can be as unkind as some humans.
Nevertheless, watching these easily identified birds brought back memories of the last time I had seen them. It was during a trip to Antelope Island in Utah’s Great Salt Lake where they usually hung out among cattails and reeds at water’s edge.
It was after one of those earlier sightings that I painted the bird seen above.
While the blackbirds’ yellow feathers stole the show as they flew among the Brewer’s at Lakeside Park last week, the smaller birds also had some show-stopping qualities. You just had to look a little harder.
First there was the Brewer’s yellow eyes, and then the iridescent sheen of metallic purple and blue that make the bird’s black feathers seem to sparkle in the sunlight. People don’t always give these birds the respect they deserve because they’re such a common sight. They are often that little black bird you see in a parking lot or alongside a road.
And as humans, we too often value the rare over the common.
Meanwhile, if you go looking for either of these two birds, I’ve only described the males. The females of both species are brown. You can see some yellow on the head and neck of the blackbird, but the Brewer’s eyes are dark.
I usually have to see a male Brewer’s first before I can identify the female.
And happy birding to all.
Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.
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