There are more
than one harbingers of spring in the bird world, and this beuatiful creature is one of them, the Redwinged Blackbird. Redwinged Blackbirds have a distinctive call and just (literally) screams “spring” to me. Their colors remind me of my native country Germany but also of a great Pearl Jam song. So far I have only seen males, who are elegantly black with vibrant epaulets that give them their name. And just like with the Grackles, they have a majestic side but can also look quite funny, as can be seen below. Females and youngsters look alike, with beige and brown speckles and patterns. You can see a tiny bit of that on the back of one of them here.
Now is a good time
to learn more about sexual dimorphism in birds, the differences in the appearance of male and female birds. Often, the young ones look very similar to the females, which helps them staying safe / less visible when there is danger. Teenage birds can be hard to tell apart. Here is a Red-winged Blackbird, looking very much like the female, but if you look closely, you can see some reddish tones shooting in on the shoulders in the second photo, beginnings of the famous red epaulets of the males.
