Episode 90: Rusty Blackbird – Voice of the Wild

This is Brodie with Illinois Extension and I’m here with a new “voice of the wild”

The grating call of a blackbird…but which one? Not the common grackle nor the red winged blackbird…but something else. A bird you may find in a half-frozen bottomland forest or perhaps along the icy edge of a forested lakeside. WHen they’re here in the midwest, which is only during winter and migration, their black breeding plumage will have faded to a pleasant rusty brown. This is the rusty blackbird

Rusty blackbirds are one of the few birds whose winter plumage is more aesthetically pleasing…at least to birders…than their breeding plumage. As the blue-black iridescence of their breeding feathers fade, THe edges of their feathers turn into a patchwork of beautiful bronzed ochres and it’s all accentuated by their llight colored yellow eye. On this second playthrough note the rusty’s call note is less harsh than the grackles and more complex than red winged, here’s the rusty:

Thank you to the Macaulay library at the Cornell lab for today’s sound. Learn more about voice of the wild at go.illinois.edu/VOW