Female red-winged blackbird on cattails, Coyote Hills Regional Park

I'm fortunate to have a handful of lovely cattail marshes along my daily commute, and its been wonderful to see them surrounded by beautiful autumn foliage recently. I haven't had an opportunity to attempt to capture their beauty, but it's made me think of the many times I went out looking for birds in the wetlands around San Francisco Bay when I lived in California. This particular trip to Coyote Hills Regional park was largely ignored on my hard drive, so it's nice to pull a few images out. Here's a lovely female red-winged black bird perched on some early spring cattails in the freshwater marsh.

Blackbird on cattails, Parker River National Wildlife Refuge

In my post from last evening, I wrote about the experience of getting out with my camera after over three months without using it. I thought I'd follow it up today with a frame from my last outing before my summer hiatus. A few days after I accepted my position at Harvard in May, I took a celebratory trip out to Parker River National Wildlife Refuge. Unfortunately, I didn't see much out there except for this gregarious red-winged blackbird bouncing between cattails along the road.

View more photos of blackbirds in my Song Birds Gallery

Singing red-winged blackbird, Berkeley Marina

The blackbirds are starting to make a real ruckus, which must mean that spring is just around the corner! These are two shots from an evening walk at Cesar Chavez Park at the Berkeley Marina. At least two burrowing owls are still there, although we couldn't find the third that we had seen earlier in the season. Perhaps it was just below ground, or maybe it has left for the summer.

Singing red-winged blackbird

From an April walk at the Ellis Creek Water Recycling Facility in Petaluma. Treatment wetlands are a great place to find birds, and my first tour of that area did not disappoint as this male blackbird was singing in the flowers along the trail.



He's really belting out his characteristic song -- a sound that always reminds me of the arrival of spring.

Singing blackbird

Last week I posted some shots of this red-winged blackbird posing among the yellow blooms, but my real hope when I started shooting him was to get some nice shots of him in mid-song in this terrific setting. They have such a wonderful unique call, and I always enjoy it in early spring when we start hearing them again in the local parks.

Quick Post -- Blackbird at Ellis Creek WRF

This blackbird will likely make a few more appearances on my blog in the near future. He was really quite a showoff, and the sinuous branches with yellow flowers made for a great setting.

Quick Post -- Red-winged Blackbird

A male red-winged blackbird showing off for me along the trail at the Ellis Creek Water Recycling Facility in Petaluma. He bounced from branch to branch while singing, giving me a few different takes on the scene with a variety of background colors (this is a seasonal wetland behind him). It would have been nice to capture the end of the branch in this frame, but the wind was blowing (cause of his ruffled feathers) and he was floating around in space far too much to control.

Blackbirds at Ano Nuevo

I'm going back through all of my unposted shots from a January trip to see the elephant seals at Ano Nuevo State Reserve in hopes of putting together a post about the pups, and remembered that I took a few frames of these curious blackbirds as we waited for our tour to start. These birds seem to hang around the picnic areas there, and were happy to land on posts only a few yards away.



I really like the pose in this shot (it looks sort of like he's mid-dance), although I wish the head was turned just a bit more so it was brighter.