Blackbirds & Orioles
An American family with nothing to do with the European blackbird, which is a thrush. It includes the Red-winged Blackbird, probably the most abundant bird on the continent, the grackles, the cowbirds and the orioles, which hang their nests like socks from the ends of branches.
The Brown-headed Cowbird builds no nest at all. It lays in other birds' nests, more than two hundred species on record, and leaves the foster parents to raise a chick that is often twice their size. It followed the bison across the plains, and the habit is thought to have come from a life too mobile to sit on eggs.
- Baltimore Oriole Icterus galbula
- Brown-headed Cowbird Molothrus ater
- Common Grackle Quiscalus quiscula
- Great-tailed Grackle Quiscalus mexicanus
- Red-winged Blackbird Agelaius phoeniceus
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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