Hello, tweets.

I don?t know if anyone else is going to send this in from our Master Birder field trip this last weekend, so I will. I?m sure it?s been reported on eBird already. At Para Ponds on Saturday afternoon, 20 May, we saw two good-sized flocks of Tricolored Blackbirds, seemingly all males, fly in from the east to the north side of the north pond and forage there for a while, then fly off toward the west. They totaled at least 60 birds, probably more. I didn?t see any definite females, and it seems clear they were not breeding birds. Perhaps they were looking for an appropriate site, but I don?t know why there wouldn?t be females involved in the flocks as well. There were a few Yellow-headed Blackbirds feeding with them, but no Red-winged Blackbirds that I could see. There were a small number of redwings and yellowheads on territory, apparently feeding young.

Dennis Paulson
Seattle, WA