Birds in Black

We don't have Men in Black (at least not around here) but we sure do have Birds in Black.

Probably the most beautiful black -- a deep and glossy true black -- belongs to male the Red-winged Blackbirds but they do have those red and yellow epaulets (and the females are not black at all). You might think of the Common Grackles as blackbirds but, in the bright sunlight, their plumage has a colorful sheen (the same is true of the big male Boat-tailed Grackles down at the shore).

The real all-black black birds are not 'blackbirds' at all but corvids: i.e. Common Raven, Fish Crow and American Crow. The Ravens are as close as Hampton Bays and Fish Crows are a regular flyover but it's the Am Crow that dominates the scene these days. There has long been a 'colony' on Pine Neck but, for many years, our Red-winged Blackbirds succeeded in keeping them on the far side of Weesuck Creek. Every time a Crow started to come across, an entire squadron of Red-wings would come up to meet it and drive it off. I used to describe it as the Battle of Britain with the RAF fighter planes driving off the Nazi bombers. But, for better or for worse, the Crows eventually made it across and established a branch office on this side of the creek with at least three or four pairs in residence. The crow nests are remarkably well hidden in our Pitch Pines but when the young hatch out the secret is out of the bog...er, bag. Some birds try to keep quiet when their young are out of the nest. Not the crows. The young crows from at least two different nests are now fledged and they make some unpleasant braying sounds while the adults keep up an even more fearful noise. What's the noise all about? Good question. Perhaps the adults have in mind distracting any meandering predators, homo sapiens included, that might stumble into the neighborhood.

I'm reading a very delightful and informative book by John Marzluff and Tony Angell -- two disciples of the great corvidolgoist Bernd Heinrich -- entitled "Gifts of the Crow" about the relationship between crows and people. They suggest that corvids and hominids have a long history of coevolution and many of their stories suggest friendly relations between these modern-day dinosaur descendants and modern-day dominant primates. Friendly Crows? Well, not around here. When I traipse the local trails these days, the Birds in Black set up a terrible racket. Have they found a couple of Bald Eagles on the premises? No, it's my approach and my nearness to their just-fledged young that causes the trouble.

Eric Salzman