I finally understand the old nursery rhyme.
The royal chefs didn't bake four-and-twenty blackbirds in a pie because it happened to be a favorite treat of the king. They used pie as a method to get rid of all the blackbirds gathering around their kitchens, no doubt because some apprentice cook tossed out a handful or two of spilled corn instead of sweeping it up. When shooing away the feathered mob failed to work, the chefs turned to more innovative means of bird control.
That option, of course, is not open to me, thanks to the federal Migratory Bird Act, which protects all the birds that get lumped into the collective "blackbird" category: blackbirds, crows, cowbirds, etc. Not that a blackbird pie would be remotely appealing, even if it were legal. After all, these birds are the goats of the bird world -- they eat anything.
My backyard birds include a wide variety of black birds, and not all of them necessarily black. I was already familiar with the red-winged blackbird, its distinctive red and yellow shoulder epaulets contrasting brightly with its dark feathers, but I had never seen its female counterpart before. I was thus stunned to learn that the docile chocolate- and cream-colored bird I'd seen at my thistle and sunflower feeders was the female red-winged blackbird and not some unknown large finch. She acted like a finch, going as far as perching on my "finch feast" thistle feeder upside down, just like the goldfinches who eyed her warily before scattering due to the swaying motion of the feeder that her presence caused.
The male and female brown-headed cowbirds were easily identified by their coloring and their bird-brained behavior (possibly the origin of the term?). The American crow? Well known to me, thanks to Disney's Dumbo and years spent amongst the Iowa cornfields. The few European starlings that hadn't moved on after the early spring clutch stood out, thanks to their prismatic wings. But the black bird with the iridescent blue head was a complete mystery.
I first noticed it slowly hopping along the deck rail, almost exactly mimicking the moves of the local cowbird populace. It was black and similar in size to the cowbird, so I thought nothing of it until it approached my tube feeder and leapt onto the hook that held it, its talons curving around the pole for support. As it reached with its slender beak to pluck a safflower seed from the feeder portal, sunlight illuminated it, causing its dark head to shine an incredible, radiant blue.
Grabbing my bird book, I quickly flipped through the pages, finally coming upon a photo of my mystery bird: the common grackle. Common? To me, it seemed anything but. Sparrows? Common. Crows? Common. At my home, even goldfinches were common. This sleek gymnast with the metallic indigo noggin? Anything but.
The grackle turned out to be the most human bird of all, almost teenaged boy in attitude and mannerism. Where other birds would swiftly speed away at my approach, the grackle would give me an indolent stare with its oddly clear eyes, then slowly fly away. It seemed to enjoy playing ninja, scaling my deck hooks and grabbing for purchase at all sorts of death-defying angles, just to snatch one solitary seed or nut from a feeder. It was intensely curious, watching the daily male vs. male goldfinch scuffles with cocked head and eyeing the groundhogs with interest whenever one approached the ground feeder. The grackle also had a warped sense of humor (at least to me), hopping around our sparrow trap and laughing its short, cough-like call whenever a cowbird managed to get itself caught amidst the sparrows.
Except for the grackle, the entire blackbird population would rise up into the air at the slightest sound: the sliding glass kitchen door opening, footfall around the side of the house, the compost bin swinging shut. When this happened, the sky would be filled with at least two dozen birds fleeing the vicinity, just to return a moment later a little further down my acreage. There were so many of them -- most of them crows, cowbirds, and female red-winged blackbirds -- and they maintained a permanent presence in my yard, splashing around in the birdbath, perching on the playset (well, at least until Sean chased them away), hopping onto feeders intended for smaller songbirds, pecking at the grass around the ground feeder. One evening, J pointed out how the ground around that particular feeder was bare earth due to all the beaks and talons poking at it. He was right: an ellipse about three feet in diameter was nothing but brown dust and a few wilted blades of brown grass. I knew then that the blackbird bunch had to go.
Or at least, be encouraged to find sunnier -- or, in the grackle's case, funnier -- pastures. At Home Depot, I purchased a bird seed blend that proclaimed it encouraged "fewer grackles, cowbirds, and blackbirds." Unfortunately, nobody seemed to have informed the blackbirds of this; they came to the feeder with the same gusto as before. A switch to nyjer seed and chipped sunflowers -- a favorite of the purple finches -- drew a flock of voracious female blackbirds. Peanuts in the shell, preferred by jays, woodpeckers, and apparently groundhogs, turned out to be a special treat. I'm still finding peanut shells in the grass two to three acres away from the ground feeder.
Exasperated, I finally announced to J that once the ground feeder was emptied, I would put it away until the winter. Puzzled, he asked why I would do that. Didn't I enjoy watching the birds that gathered there out our den window? Well, of course I do. It's the only feeder our bluejays and cardinals approach, and the kids get a kick out of watching the groundhogs feast there (this, of course, I didn't mention seeing as J views the groundhogs not as cute furry things but as target practice). I also know that some of the summer birds we have yet to see and many of the late summer and early fall migrants are ground feeders. I sighed, suggested transplanting some sod for the bare patch, and am now continuing to try other tactics in an effort to dissuade the pesky flock from taking control of that part of our yard.
Perhaps I need a royal baker or two, after all.
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