[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: Rusty or Brewer's?



On Thu, 27 Jan 2000, Kate Finlayson wrote:
> 
> Today we had our first Yellow-rump come
> to the peanut butter log and yesterday and today, an
> odd blackbird on the ground(It is almost black,just
> slight brown above his eyes like a brown brow,slightly
> glossy with a yellow eye-looks more like a Brewer's
> than a Rusty) He is eating the millet mix.
> I know a Rusty would be more likely, but is a Brewer's
> possible??First time ever. We never even get grackles
> here. Only occassional crows.

Since this is the second question like this in recent weeks, I'm going to 
share a very helpful web page: 
http://www.sirius.com/~alvaro/bbirds_identification.html
The text on this page was written by Alvaro Jaramillo and Peter Burke, 
authors of the definitive identification guide to Icterines (New World 
blackbirds and orioles). Someone recommended it to me after I reported a 
similar bird from the spring Jordan Lake NAMC; after reading the page 
carefully, I decided my bird was almost certainly a Rusty Blackbird.

As for what's likely and what's possible, on the Chapel Hill Bird Club's 
checklist, Brewer's Blackbirds are listed as "very rare - not present [in 
the Triangle] most years" while Rusties are "uncommon - usually present 
but not seen most days". So Brewer's is more likely than, say, a Pacific- 
Slope Flycatcher, but...

> Also a red-shouldered came in and ate something, I am
> assuming a bird. when we looked up it was right at eye
> level with its back to us obviously pulling and
> munching about 50 feet away on a branch(we were on 2nd
> floor)The birds were gone from the yard, where
> previously there had been appx. 100 on ground and on
> feeders. Will they eat birds if hungry enough?

They'll certainly try, but the vast majority of birds are too quick for a 
buteo, even a small one like a Red-shouldered. I would bet that it was 
eating some kind of rodent or other small mammal.

Joshua S. Rose
Duke University
Department of Zoology

jsr6@acpub.duke.edu
http://www.duke.edu/~jsr6/