Birdtober Day Six: Red-winged Blackbird

Photo Source: eBird.com

Red-winged Blackbirds are common birds throughout North and Central America. My eBird records tell me I've had them on my checklists 51 times in nine states. The males are flashy and the females are nondescript. They are loud, too. Here are two poems I had saved with Red-winged Blackbirds in them:

So This is Nebraska

by Ted Kooser

The gravel road rides with a slow gallop

over the fields, the telephone lines

streaming behind, its billow of dust 

full of the sparks of redwing blackbirds.

Here's the rest. ("Sparks." That's perfect.)

Vanishing

by Brittney Corrigan

...

Red-winged blackbirds veer

beyond the veil. Orioles

and swallows, the horned lark

and the jay. Color drains from 

our common home so gradually,

we convince ourselves 

it has always been gray.

...

Here's the rest of that amazing poem.

 

Here's mine for today:

 

 

 Red-Winged Blackbird


“Is it rare to see a Red-winged Blackbird?”
Googled someone hopefully,
for the flash of red and yellow
seemed something miraculous
to one who’d never noticed it before.

Google dampened the unknown Googler’s enthusiasm,
responding that this was one of the most common birds
you were likely to see in North American wetlands.

“Is it rare to read a poem about a Red-winged Blackbird?”
I wonder, turning to Google to look for some
and finding so many that it hardly seems worthwhile
writing another, and yet
a sight doesn’t have to be rare to lift your heart with joy.
You just have to see it with all your attention,
loving it in the moment it’s there.

I, for example,
have seen and heard many Red-winged Blackbirds
and will always stop and stare,
enraptured,
at another.

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey