I'm still working on it, but so far I can find no literature that mentions
a different eye color in young Rusty Blackbirds, nor any indication of
geographic variation in this character. Even if juveniles had dark eyes,
for which I can find no mention yet (and the NGS guide is very explicit in
denying this), I wouldn't have thought this would persist into midwinter,
much less spring. Could it be that dark eye simply means "I'm not a Rusty
Blackbird?"

I never want to insult the sensitivities of others, but then again, I'm
good at it, so here I go again. I asked Gary Shugart if he had seen Rusty
Blackbirds with dark eyes when he lived in Michigan, he said "sure, and
they were redwings." Do all you blackbirders (sadly, there are more
blackbirders than black birders) know that a first-year male Red-winged
Blackbird is heavily marked with brown? Some of them are so heavily marked
they look essentially like females, others are richly washed with the same
buffy-brown above, somewhere between streaking and barring, that
characterizes fall rusties. They can have a pale supercilium, too. The
"red" epaulettes (lesser wing coverts) are completely hidden when the bird
is at rest but should show in flight, although never as bright as an adult
male. These redwings, of course, have a redwing bill, thicker than that of
a rusty. Fall female rusties should have a pale throat, but throat in male
rusty and male redwing is dark. I would have said that eye color and
specifics of pattern, as well as shape, would have to be used to
distinguish the two species. After having just looked at our collection of
redwings, I'm sure there could be some confusion engendered by the
surprisingly rich brown fall and winter first-basic redwings.

Brewer's should never show reddish-brown markings, although I've seen some
really odd-looking juvenile male Brewer's in summer, with enough brownish
edgings that they might be called a rusty. Not in winter, though.

I'll keep looking into eye color.


Dennis Paulson phone: (206) 756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax: (206) 756-3352
University of Puget Sound email: dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416