Red-winged Blackbird

Oh yayyyy ebkrueg! Maybe the groundhog was right afterall!

Guess I'm a liar about not seeing red-wings until Spring, one visited here today.

Hi Monica. It is right above the yellow bar on his wing. He can control when you can see it. If he feels real confident, he will display it. Good to see you Moncia.

I wonder why they call him a Red-Winged Blackbird as I don't see any red on his wing! It must be on the inside of his wings, right?

I am so glad that you said that , chickie. Because I do remember them being able tu fly about 4 or 5 feet off the ground, but was afraid tu say it.

Have you got blackbirds with a yellow beak too?? Thanks so very much Sandy!!

Yep, they can be a lot of fun morris. Sometimes when I walked in the chicken house, one or two would fly up and land on my arms. : )

So you have them more for pets. i knew someone years ago who had bantees. They were fun little chickens.

I like cochin bantams because they are very easy to tame and you can hold them. They do get broody and would rather sit on eggs to hatch rather than lay them though.

Red star is the breed of chickens you should get. A fried of mine got some this past spring. Really good producers. They were even laying eggs during the cold spells. Just a thought.

It will probably be Summer by then, suzy!
Very interesting, I learned a lot about redwing blackbirds by reading the comments!

Thank you Graciela, Suzy and robryan.

Hope so Suzy. : )

He's obviously feeling a little shy - has only a peep of colour showing. Thanks chickie - nice one.

I am SO GLAD spring has arrived for you. Will it still be spring in 3 weeks? :)

Beautiful chickie, hopefully we'll get them here by the springtime!

Thank you Patti.

Great photo! Thanks, CM!

Thank you Bizarra, jcarroll, roseheather, oddio, warbler, gnt, Fidget, JiggyBelle, laura, ebkrueg, snooker aned Tatinha.

Oddio and warbler, I too love their song. When I first hear it, I get warm fuzzys because I know Spring has arrived.

Here is some info I got off the net on the red and yellow stripe on the red-winged blackbird.
Glossy-black males have scarlet-and-yellow shoulder patches they can puff up or hide depending on how confident they feel.

It has an intense look, doesn't it? Thanks for posting

Gnt, the female redwinged blackbird is not black. It is speckley and brown.

See: http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Red-winged_Blackbird/id and scroll down to the photo of a female.

Just had a couple hundred of them here last week. They stayed for almost a week on their migration north. A woman feeds them or they would have left sooner.

I'm in NY and don't see red-wings until the robins come back.

Funny you should post a picture of one of these gals. I just had one at my feeder today, after being gone for a few months. I thought I was seeing things, but sure enough, it was a female red-winged!

Beautiful! Another great one, Chickie!

Red-winged black birds are new to my feeders this year, too. I'd seen them in the fields over by the airport (some 5 or so miles away) for years, but never in my yard before this year. Very pretty picture.

Good pic chickie.....this being the female as having the white and not the red which will be on the male....u did a great job

Nice photo, Chickie. Any idea who does his manicures? I love when they are starting to mate and they ruffle up and do the "Here I am" call song.

How do you have time for other stuff when you're taking all these great bird pictures?? :>)

I love the song of these birds. Nice photo, CM.

Wonderful portrait of this red-wing.

Nice to see that someone else had them coming to the feeder. I have been surprised to see them at ours.

Nice one, chickie!

Another cute bird! thank you