NATURE CLICKS #609 - YELLOW-HEADED BLACKBIRD

Yellow-headed Blackbird, Star Lake, Ottertail County, Minnesota

The last kayak trip of our little Minnesota adventure had some wonderful surprising moments. We wanted to explore a new body of water outside of the state park and paddled Star Lake in Ottertail County, one of the larger lakes around. But size doesn’t matter, the water was crystal clear as at any smaller lake we paddled before. First it was not really exciting because homes and cabins along the lake shore didn’t leave much space for natural habitats. It wasn’t until we went deep into a big field of reeds and cattails on the other side of the bay when the fun of bird watching started. The call of a male Yellow-headed Blackbird is slightly different than the omnipresent Red-winged Blackbird (they were of course present as well) and before we even reached the reeds, we knew they were in there somewhere.

Today’s photo is the result of patience and quite a few paddle maneuvers for a view without too much obstruction by the reeds. It has been a long time that I had this beautiful bird in front of the lens and I was thrilled to see and finally photograph them again.

Nikon Z6 III, Nikon NIKKOR Z 600 f/6.3 VR S,    @ 600 mm, 1/1250 s, f/6.3, ISO 400, image slightly cropped

NATURE CLICKS #449 - YELLOW-HEADED BLACKBIRD

Green Island Wetlands, Mississippi Valley, Iowa

It has been six years that I saw and photographed a Yellow-headed Blackbird in the Green Island Wetlands. There was a habitat, a smaller pond with lots of cattail plants, that went through a lot of abuse from construction related measurements by the railroad company that operates the neighboring railroad track. As a result the Yellow-headed Blackbirds disappeared from that location, the only one I knew where this species lived in this area.

Today Joan and I went back to the wetlands in hope to see the White-faced Ibis again. But they had moved on and were not found anywhere. Instead we saw two male Yellow-headed Blackbirds in this thorny tree while driving slowly down the gravel road on the dike. This gives me hope that this species is not lost for this area. Their call is a little different from that of the Red-winged Blackbird, which can be found in abundance. I will keep my ears and eyes open during this summer and maybe I can locate a new breeding ground somewhere between the reeds…