To be clear, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between red-tailed hawks and a half dozen similar birds in the state, so I’m mostly assuming by population and location that 90% of the brown and spotty and stripey hawky things I’ve seen are red-tailed.  The most recent one I’ve seen – and the best view I’ve ever had, if it had lasted more than 1.5 seconds – was going down Peasley Canyon Road.  The bird was camping on some roadkill, counting on people to not smash him as they drove by at fifty miles per hour.

Most of the times I’ve seen these birds were from a passenger seat in a car or on a bus, looking out the window.  Makes a lot of sense for them to be right by busy streets.  Lots of roadkill to eat, and pigeons like to nest under overpasses, or in the supports for the light rail, that kind of thing.  One of the highway encounters was just sunning itself on a median covered in sun-baked weeds.  Another was flying real close to the street, by one of those pigeon underpasses.

Probably scored a bird there.  The most interesting to me was on an occasion when I was either coming to or going away from Seattle in darkness, on the bus.  Looking out from the highway in the direction of the Rainier Brewery building, I saw a large bird of prey hauling something as large as it.  Could’ve been a fucked up dead cat or dog, but it could also have been a jacket scavenged for nesting material.  It was all just shadowy shapes passing by amber steet lamps.  This was before they installed the color-cycling lights on the Rainier Brewery building, which I think is now storage or studio space?

The best best view I’ve had of them – the one that lasted longer than a split second or was closer than a mile away – was of a taxidermy specimen in Kansas.  It was not nearly as large as I would have expected.  Scale is so hard to tell, but at the usual distance I have from them, they seem close to the size of a bald eagle.  Apparently much smaller than the big guys?  This is the nemesis of birders like me.  Scale is almost useless for ID, so fallible are my perceptions.  I once saw streaky LBBs much closer than these hawks – probably song sparrows – scavenging in a ditch, and they looked so small to me – smaller than juncos, way smaller than they should have.  But they sure weren’t that small.  Closest thing to the size I perceived would be kinglets, and these were definitely not those.

The only time I’ve heard their famous cry was in the Olympic Mountains, near Hurricane Ridge.  After hearing it so many times on TV and in movies, never in real life, it felt pretty special.  Anyway, red-tailed hawk.  It’ll eat some roadkill and pigeons for you.  It provided the majestic cry we associate with cinematic bald eagles.  Salute.

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Again, american blackbirds – the icterids – have nothing to do with those four and twenty guys baked in pies.  These ones are more slim and graceful in appearance, more pointy in the beak.  Brewer’s blackbirds are about the same size as red-winged blackbirds, but more drab, and far more likely to be seen prowling the concrete meadows called parking lots.

If I had to guess based on appearance, I’d think they were a more “basal” member of the line that led to grackles – much smaller and less showy, but with the same iridescent oily black feathers and beady yellow eyes.  In the delicate little brewer’s, it looks so jaunty and cute.  Black cat vibes.  Meanwhile, the females are a drab ashy brown with a slight iridescent sheen and blood red eyeballs.  Very cute in a different way.  I like this species a lot.

Chip!  Like a lot of birds, they have a sharp one-note call they use for some purpose or another.  And conveniently, it sounds like they’re talking about potato-based snack foods, which is something I’m sure they’d enjoy.  I don’t know what the wisdom is, on whether or not you should give them a french fry, but it’d be tempting.

The first place I took special notice of them was in the parking lot of the Fred Meyer grocery store in Puyallup, pronounced pyoo-all-ip to you non-Warshingtonians and probably pronounced 1000% different by actual natives.  I also saw them in the parking lot by the Happy Teriyaki up there, which is just around the corner from the Fred Meyer, so … same diff.  More recently the most common place for me to see them is in the Malwart parking lot, over by the Mall-Formerly-Known-as-the-Supermall.

Another time I saw them in a more rustic environment – the pumpkin patch / corn maze arranged by Carpinito Bros in the fall.  There were also red-winged blackbirds, starlings, and crows, and I didn’t get a clear idea of how well the species get along or not.

The most urban setting where I’ve ever seen them was at a pet store in North Seattle, in the scummy and desolate wasteland known as Aurora Avenue.  Shiny, perfect little birdies.  Thanks for being there.

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One time I mentioned feeling privileged to see a few red-winged blackbirds and some fool I know online had to brag they see bazillions of them all the time.  Thanks, fucko.  But as I reflect from where I am now, yeah, I have seen a fairly large amount of red-winged blackbirds.

Red-winged blackbirds are icterids – New World blackbirds with no relationship to your Turdus merula, which itself is a lot more similar to the bullshit we call a robin here.  Never mind all that.  They are very black, close to starling sized but more slim, pointy beaked.  In the adults in breeding plumage, the only color on them is a red (or in some populations red and white) bar on each wing.

They might have some kind of migration patterns, but they are also present all year long in a lot of their range.  Here you can definitely see them any time of year.  But in spring they get a lot more noticeable because of their song, which is loud, carries well, and sounds a little like a coach whistle.

RWBBs are birds of wetlands, so much so that I’ve never seen them far from a watering hole of some kind.  I’m pretty sure they eat little frogs and tadpoles and such.  Maybe dragonfly nymphs?  But the thing about water, cat tails, reeds, etc. is that you can find a sliver of that kind of biome at the side of the road all over the place.  Anywhere with a ditch, there can be water and the things that water sustains – even if they are polluted and pathetic.

That is to say, the first place I can sorta recall seeing one is right next to a highway, in the cattails next to the on-ramp.  And the place I’ve seen them the most?  The managed “wetland” lot behind the 7-11 at the intersection of 1st Ave South and 308th Street in Federal Way.  They show up like clockwork, singing their song every spring.  Very nice.

I’ve seen them near roads from here to Kansas, heard their song carry over the parking lots of hotels and even the big mall in downtown Federal Way.  Where’s the water?  Again, there’s fenced-off pond maintained by the city, pretty close at hand.  I’ve never seen the blackbird at the mall – just heard it – and it could have been from as far away as that pond.

During a birdwatching trip with my brother in Kansas, we went to a field environment in early spring and saw a bunch of them in a mix of breeding colors and drab streaky whatever.  Life stages?  Were the streaky ones all juveniles?  I dunno.  I’ve also seen them in the mix with Brewer’s blackbirds, starlings, and crows, at the Carpinito Brothers’ pumpkin patch in that farmlandish North Auburn / South Kent area.

And lastly, most recently, I finally saw them in genuinely large numbers.  I’m sure some joker will shit in my comments about how they’d see millions of them, so me only seeing hundreds is pathetic loser shit and cause for ecological despair, but I thought it was cool to see.  It was a blustery overcast randomly raining day and there were birds flocking in trees and on the mowed lawns near the alternative high school (where the delinquents and pregnant girls go).

I was getting dirtyanki (teriyaki usa style made by South Asians) at Happy Express and I couldn’t tell what those birds were.  Given the flock size and the “radio static” sound they were making, I assumed they were starlings.  Starlings would look nearly black under those skies.  But I busted out the birdy app and no, it was all blackbirds.  And as I listened closer, I could pick out elements I recognized from their more recognizable calls.

It makes me feel good.  Looking the other direction a big murder of crows were playing on the lawn and rooftop of a mossy old house, shafts of sunlight breaking through the clouds at random to sparkle the wet grass.  Another crow on my side of the street was demonstrating tool use to probe the grass at the edge of the parking lot.  That weather could not bother me at all.

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So picture this.  Boggy park with elevated walkways so you can visit without feeding leeches.  Lots of trees in varying states of liveliness and decay.  Lots of birds but they have lots of places to hide.  On a cold quiet day you might catch barely any at all.

The path leads down to a small lake.  Lake Hylebos.  You stay your minute, turn around to head back.  On that tree stump off the path, was that dead snake there before?  That’s weird.  Why are robins and other birds flying around and screeching?

This was the only time in my life I’ve seen the predator-mobbing behavior of birds other than crows.  The robins and possibly others (I remember that less well, and it was impossible to see everybody involved) were harassing a barred owl, out in daylight to eat snakes and take names.

I saw the owl fly to a shadowy tree branch where it rested.  As much noise as they kicked up, the other birds didn’t want to get too close.  This was at the outer limits of my vision, and my cellphone’s ability to see isn’t any better than my ailing eyeballs.  But we strained to keep watching for as long as the bird was willing to sit still.

A barred owl is a pretty generic owl, grey and brown and white and cryptic.  The most noteworthy things about it are a lack of feather horns and having dark eyes instead of the typical yellow.  It’s like they’re a strigid owl trying to evolve into a tytonid owl – ghostfacing like a barn owl.  The cool thing about it, to me, is that I never ever get to see owls.  And I got to see this one!  Yay me.

But it’s not that special, apparently.  I’ve seen a photograph of one taken from right under the Space Needle, in the middle of Seattle Center.  I’m always hearing fuckoes tell me they saw a great horned owl in broad daylight as well, perched on a mailbox in their suburban home, or somesuch.  I’ve never seen that shit and probably never will.

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Wrens can be hard to be sure about.  I know an expert could just clock ’em in a heartbeat.  I’m not so good with LBBs.  There’s this one type of wren I’ve only encountered in marshy environments and assumed was a marsh wren, but upon looking at wren photos tonight, it looks much more like the pacific wren.  Who’s who?

Easier is the wren I see the most often.  Bewick’s wren is super common in the Puget Sound Trough and has strong enough markings to distinguish from whoever else might be on this side of the mountains.  I first got a good look at them in my first Federal Way apartment, some better looks at another apartment in that city, and at last down here in Auburn.  They are all the hell over my neighborhood, chirping up a storm at the appropriate times of year.

Bewick’s wren is a little brown bird with a pale chin and belly, and a strong light eyebrow streak.  Beady black eyes like Hello Kitty, of course.  Thin stripes on wings and tail, orb-like proportions tho not as strongly as on bushtits.  Wrens of all types, to my understanding, are most notable for carrying their tails in the air.  Gotta show they ass, in the parlance of our times.  They love hanging out in bushes, especially along the tops of taller ones, six to ten feet or so.

Ren is a name that shows up in japanese cartoons from time to time.  The one I remember offhand is a little girl that got resurrected by a magic sword in Inuyasha.  There’s Ren Höek of course, a “problematic fave” of mine from sex creep John Kricfalusi’s classic kid’s show.

It can also be short for Lorenzo, apparently?  There was a guy in NWA named Ren, nicknamed “The Villain.”  Ice Cube called him Lorenzo in that famous old ditty Fuck tha Police, we can assume that to be his birth name.  Do rappers have dead names?  I’ll call him Ren or The Villain if he wants me to.  Gotta stay true to the principles.

Wonderfully, the German word for wren translates to “Fence King.”  Smol but regal.

What other qualities can we infer from this bird’s presence in prose and poetry?  They’re sneaky as fuck when it comes to crime, gonna smoke ’em now and not next time.  Make you think they’re gon kick your ass, but drop your gat, and wren’s gonna blast.

Shit like that.

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There are birds that are still, for all that’s fucked up in nature right now, doing very well for themselves.  And I have to wonder with all of them – are they doing too well for themselves?  Are there supposed to be this many black-capped chickadees, or has the presence of colonizer-styled civilization caused them to multiply beyond the numbers they should have?

Like dark-eyed juncos, black-capped chickadees are ridiculously numerous.  Then again, I’ve only been paying attention to birds since I’ve been living in Washington state.  I get the impression this could be nationwide, that there could be black-capped chickadees from coast to coast, but crimbo decorations could give one the same idea about cardinals, and those are not where I live.

Also, regarding the numbers, something I haven’t talked about yet in these articles:  Before the current woeful epoch, just how many animals were there?  What were the numbers like?  It’s easy to imagine without cars splattering bugs and larger animals everywhere they go, with less poison and plastic and pollution, with a more stable climate, there could’ve been a lot more creatures, everywhere and all the time.  When a mummer gamboled through the streets of Saxony in 1586, how many storks were on those rooftops?  Sparrows in the eaves?  How many different species of bird would an observant person be able to see every day?  In short, would it look like there are too many chickadees if there were more of everything else?

Black-capped chickadees do the famous chicka-dee-dee-dee song, which to my ears sounds more like tsickita-bee-bee-bee.  They have a lot of other vocalizations, mostly variations on tsickita, but one always captures my attention.  It sounds mournful, and it may be confirmation bias, but I feel like I’ve mostly heard it from chickadees far from a flock, alone in a tree, especially on a cold or wet day.  That call sounds like oomp-pewee.

So basically, in an AU where the first chickadees observed were all depressed, they’d be called umpewees instead.  The more u kno.

I saw a birding youtuber document one season worth of breeding by a pair of chickadees in a nest box, and boy howdy, these guys fuck.  Seems like in a good year, a couple of chickadees could spit out a hundred.  This is not as fast as mouse breeding, but it’s pretty damn prolific.  This is why small predatory animals exist.  Eat these guys up like some marshmallows.  Pop ’em like skittles.

Some animals just look like a food.  I think bushtits look more like a food than chickadees, but still… bite size.  There are different types of cuteness and small birds like this are in that Hello Kitty territory, where the idea they’d have thoughts or feelings is less easy to imagine.  Shut off your empathy; be like the mighty falcon; gobble ’em up.

Chickadees of all types are basically New World tits, so like, I once again had an excuse to say tits on an article.  They have a black-cap and chin.  You know what they look like.  Don’t play the fool.

You know, I thought I’d have a lot more to say about black-capped chickadees, in part because there are so many of them, but I can call nothing more to mind, now that it’s time.  Put out a feeder and you’ll see them.  They should look familiar.  If you’re norteamericano, they got yer ass surrounded.

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also known as the american dipper but fuck that lol. this is a drab grey but real cool bird. they’re the only perching bird (to my knowledge) that has become adept in the water. they swim with their wings (called aquaflying in birds) and clamber on riverbed rocks underwater.

i wish i’d gotten a better look but i only saw them at a distance, while hiking out to see a waterfall in the olympic rain forest. i often ask for people to relate their stories of these birds in comments but i’d especially like stories about these ones.

there’s an idea in zoology that “anatomy is not destiny” – that animals can do things or go places you would not expect of them just based on how they look. the classic example is goats in trees, another is humans swimming. water ouzels do not have webbed toes and look much like any passerine bird, but iirc they do have some subtle evidence of aquatic adaptation – like denser bones? idk.

expertise welcome below…

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I’ve seen falcons and possibly other small birds of prey at a distance a number of times, but IDing them?  Forget it.  It’s small.  It’s streaky on belly.  It has lil markies on its lil face.  It could be literally any falcon and if you aren’t 100% sure about the face?  Small hawks too.

Then on March 26th, one killed and ate a Eurasian collared dove on my front lawn, leaving only tawny feathers, blood, and one funky magenta foot.  Lots of people have seen this kind of thing, sometimes more than once, but it’s the only time I’ve seen it.  The bird was pretty bold, which let us get some shitty pictures of it.  Here’s the suspect beside a near identical one from some yewchoob man’s video.  An adult female merlin?

I was surprised the crows, which are not shy about mobbing much larger hawks and eagles, gave this little beast a very wide berth.  Maybe they saw the death blow and it was scary to behold.  I know I’d be freaked out to see a bird dive bombed out of the sky and ripped to pieces alive while still stunned.  Lucky me, I did not have to watch that happen.  I’m confident the victim was taken on the wing tho, because eurasian collared doves pretty much never land in my yard, flying high above it.

The crows were flying rather oddly, which was the first hint I was coming around the corner into a freaky scene.  Part of that may have been the weather; a thunderstorm broke out within a half hour of the kill.  The crows had wings and tail feathers fully fanned, and were floating around all strange.  But it was so weird, right after I saw the little murderer on my lawn, I glanced around for the crows and they were nowhere to be seen.

The tiny monster was so intent on defending its kill that I was able to walk around, try to find my husband, and bring him back.  Then my husband took the pictures and a short video, which is where the stills you see here come from.  To the right here, you can see the great escape.  She finally got annoyed with our shenanigans and flew away with a big chonk of meat.

Vaya sin dios, you funky killing machine.

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There’s an idea that famous cryptid The Jersey Devil can be explained by the sighting of a lone crane in the forest.  Sometimes it is depicted as a bird-like thing with the head of a horse.  I believe it’s a coincidence that the young of cranes are called “colts,” but it’s a fun coincidence.  Unlike the other leggy-and-necky birds known as herons and egrets, baby cranes are cute as hell.  I love them.  I also love hideous freak heron babies, but for different reasons.

Another cool mythical association:  Cranes are the mortal enemies of pygmies.  I do believe this myth has fuck-all to do with the various African tribes of short stature.  The pygmies of Greek legend are mythological beings.  In modern times we’re used to creatures like unicorns or centaurs existing as solitary units, discrete icons.  These ones came with a built-in drama in the form an aeternal war with another type of mythological creature.  Because waging war on pygmies is not something real birds do.  That shit’s just weird.  But funny.

I’ve only ever seen cranes when going out of my way to find them.  They are not a part of my life at all.  I went on a big birding road trip with my dad once and saw cranes in a suburb of Portland, Oregon.  I didn’t remember with certainty which crane species they were and had to look them up.  Based on range maps, this had to be the one: greater sandhill crane.  I didn’t get a very good view.  It was using binoculars to see them at a great distance; not too exciting.  Greige beasts with a lil red bit.

But still.  Big-ass birds are the closest thing we get to pterosaurs nowadays, and they are very cool.  Cranes.  Worth going out of your way for.

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