Return of the red-winged blackbird #phenology

Irregularly, a male red-winged blackbird will visit our bird feeders. Some years one shows up early in May. Other years pass with no appearance at all at the feeders. A few moments ago, one landed on the sunflower feeder. The first few times this happened, it freaked us out. We had never heard of red-winged blackbirds at bird feeders.

red-winged blackbird and red-bellied woodpecker on feeder

Photo by J. Harrington

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology makes no mention of feeders in their overview of the feeding habits of blackbirds:

Red-winged Blackbirds eat mainly insects in the summer and seeds, including corn and wheat, in the winter. Sometimes they feed by probing at the bases of aquatic plants with their slender bills, prying them open to get at insects hidden inside. In fall and winter they eat weedy seeds such as ragweed and cocklebur as well as native sunflowers and waste grains.

red-winged blackbird on tray feeder

Photo by J. Harrington

 Another fascinating, but depressing, feature of the photo immediately above, taken May 5, 2015, is the amount of green in the background. This year, a similar photo would not show even a hint of green leaves, unless something truly miraculous occurs over the next two days, something not envisioned by Wallace Stevens.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

By Wallace Stevens

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.

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