Yellow-headed Blackbird

Rick Blom (rblom@blazie.com)
Wed, 11 Feb 1998 08:39:27 -0500


        Two to three mornings a week since mid-December I have spent 15-20
minutes out in front of my townhouse before driving my daughter to school.
On most mornings there is a large flight of blackbirds that pass over,
moving roughly southeast to northwest. They come from a roost on Aberdeen
Proving Ground. The number varies, depending on the flight line, from about
10,000 to over 200,000. This morning an adult male Yellow-headed Blackbird
was part of the group.
        The vast majority of the birds are Common Grackles. The earliest
part of the flight is often Red-winged Blackbirds, however. There are small
numbers of Brown-readed Cowbirds and European Starlings mixed in.

Rick

"Everywhere I go I'm asked if the university stifles writers. My opinion is
that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a bestseller that could
have been prevented by a good teacher."  Flannery O'Connor

Rick Blom
rblom@blazie.com
Bel Air, Maryland