Clothes maketh the man
Big Boi, Steve McQueen, or Sean Connery will tell you it's a truth universally acknowledged that the way we look or dress reflects an instinctive desire to stand out in a crowd, to attract those whom we find appealing while keeping others at arm's length. The same attitudes, as many studies have demonstrated, apply to male red-winged blackbirds, who readily flaunt their bright red, yellow-edged military style epaulets - both to keep intruding males at bay and attract female companions.
Every spring, these feathered sergeant majors return en masse from their wintering grounds throughout North America. Here in California, you can see & hear them by lost country roadsides and along crowded highways edged with dense vegetation; in city parks, cultivated fields, isolated cattail marshes. In the mating season they are everywhere - busy, noisy, and showing off.
Arriving sometime in March or April, the fellas are ready for action, and fights erupt almost instantaneously as the birds stake out their territory. I observed this not one week ago in Tennessee Valley*. They size up one another, then point their bills upward, spreading their wings and tails, highlighting the bright red epaulet feathers. A few seconds elapse before one of them, discreetly lowers his shoulders and retracts his head, covering the epaulets with its black plumage, apparently admitting defeat. With a flick of the feathers, as it were, aggressors are transformed into outcasts.
This kind of diplomatic jousting goes on at a noisy clip for weeks, after which the losers beat a retreat and take up quarters in less desirable real estate. Their they perch on tall grasses or picket fences, lining up in close formation, waiting for something to happen and resigned to their unfair lot in life.
Meanwhile, the female red wings are getting ready to migrate northward, in time for the conquerers' victory parade. They turn up sans epaulets, though still eminently eye-catching in their own modest way: brownish black plumage, buff eyebrows and head stripe. There are so many of them that they have to jock for a harem. A few cunning Don Juans, driven by perhaps unbridled libido or else a desire to have it all, go so far as to build fake nests in the hope of enticing even more females. The latter happily fall for the ruse, only to end up berating the sly, polygamous rascals for their deception.
But the ladies keep on coming, supplanting the previous wave who are now busy with mundane family duties - nest buiding, egg-laying, incubating and feeding the young. Energized, the master grows increasingly vigilant, swiftly dispatching potential rivals and intruders who may be hangin round his doman. His sharp, pointy bill spares to no one.
As summer fades to fall, the red wings - one our most abundant bird species - dissapear without warning. "Bye, bye, blackbird" in the words of the old song.
work cited:
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Red-winged_Blackbird.html
*This dope spot contains a bevy of wildlife; from mighty raptors to common swallows, the birds of the valley will keep your eyes on the skies. The skies are not the only place to view wildlife; the valley is teeming with deer, coyote, and on an occasion you might even see a bobcat. In the spring time the vegetation of the valley is lush and green and/or blooming and you will find lupine, checker-bloom, blue-eyed grass, California buttercup, and California poppy.
Big Boi, Steve McQueen, or Sean Connery will tell you it's a truth universally acknowledged that the way we look or dress reflects an instinctive desire to stand out in a crowd, to attract those whom we find appealing while keeping others at arm's length. The same attitudes, as many studies have demonstrated, apply to male red-winged blackbirds, who readily flaunt their bright red, yellow-edged military style epaulets - both to keep intruding males at bay and attract female companions.
Every spring, these feathered sergeant majors return en masse from their wintering grounds throughout North America. Here in California, you can see & hear them by lost country roadsides and along crowded highways edged with dense vegetation; in city parks, cultivated fields, isolated cattail marshes. In the mating season they are everywhere - busy, noisy, and showing off.
Arriving sometime in March or April, the fellas are ready for action, and fights erupt almost instantaneously as the birds stake out their territory. I observed this not one week ago in Tennessee Valley*. They size up one another, then point their bills upward, spreading their wings and tails, highlighting the bright red epaulet feathers. A few seconds elapse before one of them, discreetly lowers his shoulders and retracts his head, covering the epaulets with its black plumage, apparently admitting defeat. With a flick of the feathers, as it were, aggressors are transformed into outcasts.
This kind of diplomatic jousting goes on at a noisy clip for weeks, after which the losers beat a retreat and take up quarters in less desirable real estate. Their they perch on tall grasses or picket fences, lining up in close formation, waiting for something to happen and resigned to their unfair lot in life.
Meanwhile, the female red wings are getting ready to migrate northward, in time for the conquerers' victory parade. They turn up sans epaulets, though still eminently eye-catching in their own modest way: brownish black plumage, buff eyebrows and head stripe. There are so many of them that they have to jock for a harem. A few cunning Don Juans, driven by perhaps unbridled libido or else a desire to have it all, go so far as to build fake nests in the hope of enticing even more females. The latter happily fall for the ruse, only to end up berating the sly, polygamous rascals for their deception.
But the ladies keep on coming, supplanting the previous wave who are now busy with mundane family duties - nest buiding, egg-laying, incubating and feeding the young. Energized, the master grows increasingly vigilant, swiftly dispatching potential rivals and intruders who may be hangin round his doman. His sharp, pointy bill spares to no one.
As summer fades to fall, the red wings - one our most abundant bird species - dissapear without warning. "Bye, bye, blackbird" in the words of the old song.
work cited:
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Red-winged_Blackbird.html
*This dope spot contains a bevy of wildlife; from mighty raptors to common swallows, the birds of the valley will keep your eyes on the skies. The skies are not the only place to view wildlife; the valley is teeming with deer, coyote, and on an occasion you might even see a bobcat. In the spring time the vegetation of the valley is lush and green and/or blooming and you will find lupine, checker-bloom, blue-eyed grass, California buttercup, and California poppy.