Yesterday, late in the sweltering heat of late afternoon, when I was watering a plant in my garden, a bird flew from behind me and landed about a foot from my feet. Without hesitation, it promptly stepped in to drink voraciously. I thought it was going to open its mouth to let water pour in, it was that close; but drank from the ground instead. The soil was gravely, so the water puddled for only a second before the ground soaked it up. We watched for the water pool again, and it drank again. This lasted for all of about a minute because the water I had left was very little. So interesting that it chose to drink next to a human in my small yard downtown rather than go to the creek two blocks away! I guess my garden is pretty sweet.
As it stood there, I could not for the life of me identify it!... size of a starling, maybe a bit bigger, mostly a dull black all over with brown under the wing (sweat spot) and underside. The slope of the head and bill were low, that of a Red-winged Blackbird. I could have sworn I was looking at yellow lore spots, and this really through me off...everything matches a female Grackle, except the yellow lores. any ideas? was I hallucinating in the heat? -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
