Today, 15 Mar 15, at my feeders, 147 Hile School Rd, Freeville, a hop-skip and wing-pump out of the Basin. At least 6 Common Grackles and 6 male Redwinged Blackbirds in the morning; 2 male cowbirds around 1600h. With 2 groups of feeders and birds going back and forth, not sure of total redwings and grackles. Several younger male grackles also.
The redwings displayed an almost continuous range of variation in breeding plumage development from 'young, very-dark-female-type, with a pale cream "epaulet" of sorts always showing' to fully black adult with red-yellow epaulet, under full control (sometimes showing, sometimes not). I don't actually know that older males are able to exert more control over whether the epaulet shows but they seem to. Also a local group of 10-12 crows was skittering around on the new snow gathering up something that may have been ash seeds blowing around on the surface. I was too far to see the items, but they were picking things up off the surface and seemed to have to chase them a little in the morning wind. I have never seen this behavior before. Anne Clark -- 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/ --
