Harbinger of Spring

2016-04-21YH Blackbird6480

Harbinger. “a person or thing that announces or signals the approach of another”.

“Yellow-headed Blackbirds are the harbingers of spring”.
    If that ‘s so then we’re getting harbingered all over the place. Yellow-headed Blackbirds, their cousins the Red-winged Blackbirds, even Brewer’s Blackbirds are coming in dragging Spring behind them. There have been other signs of Spring too. Bluebirds have been seen everywhere, flitting shamelessly about, grabbing your attention with their deep shining American bluebird blueness. Even everyone’s favorite Buzzard the buteo buteo has arrived to eat the dead things you’ve been tripping over all winter that have been lying around all over the place. Spring is pretty darn great.

    We could wax poetically all day about the Yellow-headed Blackbird but when you get right down to it, they’re basically just a black bird with a yellow head, plus a little white on it’s wings. Lot of people who aren’t birders or just don’t give a flying fig about Nature would say “Yeah, So, What’s the big deal?”  But they miss the point. That’s the cool part of Nature. They’re the only bird that looks like that. And they do that harbinger thing too. So all you Nattering Nabobs of Negativity can just go pound sand. We’re glad that there are Yellow-headed Blackbirds harbingering Spring and you should be too. Remember just a few minutes ago we were up to our keesters in snow and cold, and short, ugly grey days and you were whining about Spring, how you wish it would get here and everything. Well it’s here and Yellow-headed Blackbirds are partly responsible so show a little respect.

   We have posted this image of a Yellow-headed Blackbird doing its thing. If you look very closely you can even see a few vestiges of Spring swirling and trailing behind it as it flies toward the Blackbird Country Club located over in the reeds next to the lake. It’s singles night tonight and there will be plenty of female Yellow-heads there just waiting to get hit on. Spring, it’s all good.