Date: 5/1/26 1:52 pm From: Chuq Von Rospach via Tweeters <tweeters...> Subject: Re: [Tweeters] Unusual Backyard Migrant: Red-Winged Blackbird
On May 1, 2026 at 12:40:59, Jim Betz via Tweeters <
<tweeters...> wrote:
> so
> if a
> particular individual (such as the well-known Short-eared Owl at the
> East 90)
> allows me close, long views ... I tend to expect that same behavior from
> other SEOWs and even from some random Red-tailed Hawk sitting on a
> pole along the road I'm driving. But that's a "fallacy" because some
> individual birds have "non-standard behaviors".
>
>
Agreed completely. Back in California there was one place where a family of
rock wrens moved in, and got very comfortable with having people around —
it was not unusual for one to wander in and run under my chair looking for
bugs. But most Rock wrens are not that amiable and friendly (“hey, can you
back up? I can’t focus that close!” — rarely a bird photography problem)
We can understand humans generally act given ways when looked at as a
region, or society — but within that, individuals vary widely, and so do
birds. That’s part of the fun of figuring them out.
Where I live, I’m surrounded by a few acres of mostly undeveloped mostly
pine and alder forest. Downhill a ways is a stream, so there’s water, but
somewhere between here and there is some kind of regular water source,
because in my ongoing Merlin monitoring, I’ve gotten hits on things like
Great Blue Heron and Wood Duck. I’ve tried exploring a bit but have never
found exactly where those sounds are coming from, but I know they’re too
close to be the downhill stream. (I’ve also gotten flyover hits like
Ring-Necked ducks headed somewhere).
We are terrible habitat for Red-Winged blackbird, but a few times a year, I
get Merlin hits. It’s most common in the spring, and it’s rarely more than
a day in a row, but it seems to me it’s a bird moving from an old location
to a new one. My guess would be a young male, not yet breeding time,
shifting territories, and I’d guess the one that we’re talking about might
be the same kind of thing, and which happened to find a place it liked to
hang out a few days.
One of the most amusing “this is not what you’re supposed to be doing”
behaviors I’ve run into is a single American Robin (we have plenty, need
some?) that for three years running because a daily feeder bird. Robins,
you will exclaim, do not visit bird feeders (unless maybe if you feed
mealworms) but here is this one that’s settled in with the finches and the
mourning doves eating the peanut and sunflower chips in the ground feeder.
Why? It won’t tell me, but I guess it decided really easy calories was
their jam.
It’s notable only because it’s an individual behavior that’s way out of
norm for the species — but that’s what also makes it fun to notice, and a
great reminder to be on the lookout for these fun and weird oddities.
> Just enjoy what you get to experience and let the "general behaviors"
> guide you to be more likely get the situations you'd like? And then
> pay attention and get the experiences you want!
>
Amen
chuq
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Chuq Von Rospach (http://www.chuq.me)
Silverdale, Washington
Birder, Nature and Wildlife Photographer
