The Daily Bucket is a regular feature of the Backyard Science group. It is a place to note any observations you have made of the world around you. Digressions on snails, fish, insects, weather, meteorites, climate, birds and/or flowers, are all worthy additions to the bucket. Please let us know what is going on around you in a comment. Include, as close as is comfortable for you, where you are located.
I work weekends at a golf course in northwest Oregon, an hour east from the Pacific Ocean and an hour west from Mt. Hood in the Cascade Range
The course is about 150 flat acres, with three multi-acre ponds, a handful of quarter-acre forested bogs, and scattered pines, firs, straggly introduced hardwoods, and a stately oak grove. There are several pear, apple and walnut trees to remind you it was once a farm. Other farms with row crops, woodlots, and vinyards surround it.
I've been waiting for a moment to arise to bucket about blackbirds, and here it is.
Two types of blackbird frequent the course grounds; the red wing blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus), and its less flashy relative, the Brewer's Blackbird (Euphagus cranocephalus).
The male redwing blackbird proudly displays its scarlet chevrons on its wing shoulders, with a glossy black body, while the smaller female is a speckled brown. http://s3.amazonaws.com/...
The Brewer's are shiny black, with seemingly intelligent yellow eyes.
Both types of blackbirds flock together on the course in groups ranging from 5 to 50, in the closely mowed areas, where they deplete the ample worm population. About 120 Brewer's and 80 Red Wings, in total, are usually there. Dozens of robins often join in the gluttony.
The Red Wings are nesting now and have about 20 fledged teenage birds livening up the premises, with more on the way. I haven't seen an active nest, but if you walk near a particular stand of arborvite, or near the cattails that line the lakes, where the red wings are nesting, the angry males will swoop so close to your head, you'll feel the wind.
I've been told they've brushed folks' hats sometimes. I believe it. The other morning, I was watched carefully for a harrier hawk I'd just seen for the first time. And there it was! But about 20 red winged blackbirds were swarming it in the sky. One Red Wing actually landed on the harrier's back as it flew, and pecked rapidly at its head.
The red wings gave up the chase when the harrier flew over the fence line, as if they were defending the golf course property only. Of course, the terrain changed also at the fence line, and the Red Wings may have lacked interest in defending the tall row crops next door.
At several locations, I witnessed male red wings, with a single young bird, as if they were mentoring the fledgling. One dad red wing demonstrated the proper technique for grabbing a fine juicy worm from the soil, moist with the morning dew, with junior watching closely from a few inches away.
This always took place within a few yards of the lakeside cattails, and if I intruded close, to about 15 feet, first Dad, then the young one, would fly into the catttails. The young ones would/could only fly a few feet.
Male red wings are sexual rascals. Each male defends up to ten females. Published word has it that the females seek additional liaisons also, so a typical nest may have 3-4 eggs with mixed paternity, as the bird literature delicately phrases it.
I find it odd that males could sire so many young birds, and yet still display the apparently paternal behavior I witnessed, with the male paired up with a single fledged teenager.
Once, I swiftly approached a pair, and abruptly stopped, because it looked like a large beast with glowing red eyes was charging at me. The male adult bird had flown head-on towards me, from a dark background. Against the background, the red chevrons on the bird's rapidly flapping wings looked like two blinking, large red eyes. I was startled and it took a few seconds to decipher the impression. It reminded me of how some large moths have "eye" patterns on their wings. The distance between the bird's bright red chevrons is quite close to the spacing of a large predator's eyes.
Before that incident, I had never thought of the red chevrons as a defense mechanism or a "bluff." I'd had always assumed the red wings were simply an attractive adaption to attract multitudes of female birds.
That's what's happening in my neck of the woods. Now it's your turn. Let us know about some aspect of your natural surroundings, from the mundane to the spectacular.