Yellow-eyed Junco

Yellow-eyed Junco
Madera Canyon, Arizona, USA
July 2019
Member of the American Sparrow Family
§A Meinie of Sparrows§

~True Bird Fact~ Yellow-eyed Juncos are, in their local range, abundant, sedentary, and often stick around the same location. They also do well with captivity, so, as a result, this bird has been used for a lot of scientific behavioral study. Not the kind of thing I would have guessed, as the bird itself looks like it might have firestarter powers.

~Real Bird Myth~ The native people of Mexico (within which most of this bird's range falls) had another name for it- Echa-lumbre, which means 'caster of fire' or 'lightning bird'. Here's an audio story on bird note about it. The Veracrucian people believed the bird absorbed sunlight by day and released it through its eyes at night. This is, to be honest, much more in line with the characterization I was imagining.

I guess in this case you can speculate about the Yellow-eyed Junco's personality as you choose. Do the scientists have it right? Or the Veracrucians? I know which one is more fun to think about, so I'm just going to picture this bird shooting lightning from it's eyeballs at scientists who try to do experiments on it.
 

A Beginners Guide to Hummingbirds that have Appeared on this Blog (with bonus mystery bird)

Wow, quite a Summer we had, bird fans. We really crammed it in here on the blog, with The Great Hummers of Late Summer being an unvarnished success by all metrics that matter (quantity, quality, name of feature). We also proved that it is theoretically still possible for this blog to come out on a weekly basis, if highly unlikely. Yes, my recent trip to the greater Tucson area proved very fruitful (read: birdful), especially for hummingbirds, and we had some great blogs about them. However, when you stop and think about it, what did we gain?

That's why today I'm going to talk a little bit about how we might take the hummingbird friends we've made this month and actually gain some knowledge that will help us find them again, in the wild. When I started this blog I never thought that it might be something people who have any interest in identifying birds would read. After all, there are so many better resources out there for that. So instead I chose to focus on 'birds for the casual bird enjoyer'. However, if there's one thing that's become clear the longer I've stayed in this hobby, is that it's at least a little bit contagious, and regular readers often catch the "I want to look at that bird and know what it is" bug (read:bird). So read on, and you too might add some hummingbirds to your life list. But probably not, unless you live, like, in the far South West.

And one more quick ground-rule- these ID tips are intended to be for birds found in the USA. There are places that have like, tons of hummingbird species, and they all look the same, so no help from me there.


Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Key Identification Feature: You might think that the ruby throat would be the dead giveaway, and you're sort of right. But something you'll see as we go down the list is that these color features are highly dependent on 1) male birds and 2) getting the right light. You see Hummingbird coloration is largely structural, not pigment-based. This means that seeing those bright colors depends on the light hitting them just right. An easier ID is that if you live on the East Coast, this is basically your only hummingbird, baring weird accidental appearance. Other than that you have the green body with a white belly, but that's a pretty common color scheme.


Anna's Hummingbird
Key Identification Feature: They have a redish-pinkish head, almost to the point of looking like they're wearing a full hood. Lives on the West Coast. For me, the vast majority of the time, if I've seen a hummingbird along the pacific, it was an Anna's. Pretty easy ID


Allen's Hummingbird
Key Identification Feature: Crazy colors! Unlike most hummingbirds, this one has spots of orange mixed in with spots of green, mostly along the top. As compared with a later orange hummingbird, this one has less orange, more green, generally speaking.


Costa's Hummingbird
Key Identification Feature: A hard one! Very similar to Anna's, but if you see something you think is an Anna's, but the 'hood' has weird points that extend downward, kind of like lapels or shoulder pads (and sometimes away from the head), it might be an Anna's. Also a purple colored head, vs a more red or pink one in Anna's (but the colors here are not always easy to see, as I mentioned earlier). Smaller, more 'hunched' posture than Anna's, which are sleeker looking. It you're not sure, it's probably an Anna's, as these are not seen as often in most places.

Broad-billed Hummingbird
Key Identification Feature: Pretty easy, I would say. Super colorful, blues and greens all over the body, even without hitting the right light. The bill, though, is really where it's at. Red, slightly curved, with a black tip. Not many hummingbirds have this combination. It is also reported that the bill has a 'broad base', which is what the bird is named for, although it's not exactly the kind of feature I think a normal person would notice or remark on.


Black-chinned Hummingbird
Key Identification Feature: A dark head and a distinctive color pattern on the throat that goes black chin, purplish necklace (sometimes just looks black), white collar. Also has a little white spot behind the eye. The top of the head is always green, in contrast with some of our more colorful hummingbirds above.


Rufous Hummingbird
Key Identification Feature: Extremely orange. If you see a hummingbird and are like "wow, I didn't know there were orange ones", it's probably a Rufous. You might see little bits of green here and there, but less so than in an Allen's. I've been informed that there are basically no differences between an Allen's and Rufous female, so you probably shouldn't even try.


Rivoli's Hummingbird
Key Identification Feature: Big! Darker than most. If you trust pictures on the internet, very colorful throughout, but that's not how I saw it. If you see a hummingbird that looks a lot sturdier and a little slower than normal, it's probably this guy. Long wings and tail with prominent black. Another white eye spot haver.

So, given all that information, we're probably all hummingbird experts now, right? Well, not so fast, because you see, this is a guy I haven't been able to identify. I also posted in the usually very accurate "What's this bird?" Facebook group and there was no consensus. I got Violet-crowned, Broad-billed, and Violet-crowned x Broad-billed hybrid, which is apparently something that can happen. So I present to you now, this Mystery Bird. Maybe some day with lots of training, it'll be YOU who finally tells me what he is. But probably not! The combination of fast moving, super small, highly variable color patterns within species, and colors that requite light to hit at certain angles make hummingbird identification pretty hard. You'll be accurate probably 90% of the time just saying it's a Ruby-throated if you're on the East Coast and an Anna's on the West, to be honest.





Potential Violet-crowned Hummingbird
July 2019

Key Identification Features: Looks a lot like a broad-billed, but check out that streak of blue along the head and back. Also, take a look at the white neck and belly, and then go look at the Broad-billed again. Much more white! However, it's not perfect, since these guys are supposed to have very straight, red beaks. And ideally there'd be an even more white. What's going on here? A trick of the light? Some weird hybrid? Maybe we'll never know. Still, I think I'm probably going to count it, since I saw it at the wonderful Patton Center for Hummingbirds, which is a place that reports daily sightings of these otherwise fairly rare birds.

Still, if you think you know what this bird is with confidence, sound off in the comments. Until next time, bird fans-

Rivoli's Hummingbird

Rivoli's Hummingbird aka. Magnificent Hummingbird (arch., but extremely complimentary)
Madera Canyon, Arizona
July 2019
Member of the Hummingbird Family
§A Hover of Hummingbirds§

~True Bird Fact~ Among the largest of the hummingbirds, it's hard for a Rivoli being this zippy and also so big. In contrast to smaller hummers, they're a bit slower, can actually glide a bit sometimes with their wings, and are more insectivorous. They also have one of the highest recorded heart rate among all vertebrates (420-1200 bpm).

Has, like, half a dozen degrees, loves going to college
Mysterious source of wealth
Names his home/boat with words that no one has any idea of the meaning of, like "Ciceronian" 



Well, we've got a Eponymous bird here, and you know what that means

Francois Victor Massena, 2nd Duke of Rivoli (a 7 year old here, presumably looked older as he aged. This is the only picture I could find, sorry!)

(1799 - 1863)

Francois was the youngest child of Andres Massena, one of Napoleon's military commanders during his whole thing. His father's nickname, by the way, was "The Dear Child of Victory", which has got to be hard on a kid. Described on his Wikipedia page as an "Amateur Ornithologist" (hey, that's me!), he accumulated quite a collection of bird specimens in his lifetime. One of the finest private bird collections, the 12,500 birds were eventually sold to an American naturalist, Thomas Bellerby Wilson, and made their way to the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. Combing through his collection with his cousin, Charles de Souancé, resulted in the describing of a number of new parrots (new to western science at least). You might remember Francois' wife as the source of the name for Anna's Hummingbird. A hummingbird power couple to be sure.

Rufous Hummingbird

Rufous Hummingbird

Madera Canyon, Arizona
July 2019
Member of the Hummingbird Family
§A Bouquet of Hummingbirds§

★The Longest Migration Route of all North American Hummingbirds★

★The Northernmost Breeding Hummingbird★

~True Bird Fact~ So, about that Migration Route- it's really pretty impressive. They travel nearly 4000 miles from Mexico to Alaska along the pacific coast, and then back down along the Rocky Mountains. And they do this every year, and at such an incredibly small body size. This migration is among the most impressive in the animal kingdom. Tough birds! Also, helpful, since their strange clockwise route makes them significant pollinators across a really large area.

~Additional Hummingbird Fact~ Hummingbirds are fast, but not so fast that they have no predators. Often these are the same animals that eat insects, which despite previous claims on this blog, does not mean that Hummingbirds are bugs. However, a clever defense that many birds employ is building a nest in a tree occupied by a bird of prey. These predatory birds are too slow and big to be interested in the small and zippy hummingbird, but they do eat the things that eat Hummingbirds. Smart!

How Endangered Are They? I was surprised, dear reader, to see Rufous Hummingbirds were on the IUCN as a Near Threatened Species. After all, there are a lot of them. 19 million, by the IUCN's own estimates. So what is endangering this bird, exactly? Well, it's actually that exacting and specific migration route. See, if something goes wrong at any of those spots, it impacts the hummingbird. Largely we're talking about climate change here, and the spring flowers blooming too early for hummingbirds to feed off of them. But also they are going to be impacted by the large insect die-offs that result from increased use of pesticides in agriculture. Population numbers have been estimated to have dropped by 60% since 1970.

Black-chinned Hummingbird

Black-chinned Hummingbird
Patton Center for Hummingbirds, Patagonia, Arizona, USA
July 2019
Member of the Hummingbird Family

§A Tune of Hummingbirds§

~true bird fact~ Ok, let's say we take these bird at face value, and assume they are not robots or fairies, but instead are living non-magical creatures. How do these hummingbirds eat, exactly? Well, they flick out their nightmarish tongue into a source of nectar, and that nectar travels along (in a Black-chinned) two grooves in it. The hummingbird then slurps the tongue back into its mouth and squeezes the nectar out. These licks are so fast that they can happen as often as 17 times each second. And I thought I ate fast!

~An additional hummingbird fact~ A hummingbird egg is about the size of a coffee bean, but the nestlings grow quickly. In fact, they grow so much that young birds become larger than their parents. Since a hummingbird nest is made partly out of spider silk, and the birds involved are so light, the nest can just stretch and expand to accommodate this growth. 

Proud atheist
Loves esoteric and complex board games
Pipe smoker
 

Well, I hinted at it in the last blog, but I guess now that I've posted an actual feeder pic, the jig is up. I prefer to get images of hummingbirds in their natural habitat when possible, but the opportunities provided at Tucson Audubon's Patton Center for Hummingbirds are too great to pass up. It is a really cool, extremely off-the-beaten path birding spot, and unique in its ability to draw hummingbirds. There were also some really lovely and helpful volunteers on the day that I visited. Check it out if you're in the area, or even online, where there are live hummingbird cams. Did I see the legendary Violet-crowned Hummingbird they are so well known for? Maybe! No really, I mean literally maybe, I don't know if the bird I got a picture of is the Violet-crowned. But I guess you'll be able to judge for yourself soon, on this very blog.

Broad-billed Hummingbird

Broad-billed Hummingbird
Patton Center for Hummingbirds, Patagonia, Arizona, USA
July 2019
Member of the Hummingbird Family
§A Glittering of Hummingbirds§

~true bird fact~ Can't walk or hop, like all Hummingbirds, his feet are just for perching. Early accounts of Hummingbirds speculated that they had no feet at all. You know blog reader *turns chair backwards in preparation of getting real with you* we've had fun with hummingbirds here on Amateurnithologist, but I feel like we've gotten off on the wrong (possibly non-existent) foot. Enough pretending that hummingbirds are bugs, or robots, or were invented by Tim Allen. We're going to dedicate some real time to hanging out with these extremely cool and highly specialized birds. That's why for the next month I'm rolling out a feature called Great Hummers of Late Summer and looking at a different bird each week. I will not be taking comments on the name of the feature.

Prideful
Nearly made it as an Olympic athlete, but some mysterious tragedy or circumstance prevented him from fulfilling his dream
Never appears to be feeling either too hot or too cold

Identifying All the Birds in the Lion King (1994)

With the new Lion King burning up the theaters (?) with it's commitment to photorealism, I thought it might be a nice time to revisit the 1994 original. I'm doing this both because this was a real favorite of your amateurnithologist when he was a kid, and because Optimized Content bay-bee! My first idea was to make a bunch of wonderful .gifs to show off the beautiful animation, but then I thought why not take remake's efforts to create the most realistic possible animals and try to hold the original to the same standard. So we'll be having it both ways today, as we do our best to both show off The Lion King and identify All The Birds.

I'm going to level with you blog fans, basically 90% of the bird content in this movie comes from the opening number, the show-stopping Circle of Life. Which is fair, the movie's not called The Bird King after all.

By Charles J Sharp - Own work, from Sharp Photography, sharpphotography.co.uk, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=66179038

We open with a couple of pretty easy ID's- a trio of Marabou Storks fly to Simba's presentation ceremony. Now would be a good time to talk about where The Lion King takes place (and hence, where we're drawing our IDs from). The most common answer you find doing this research is Central-Eastern Africa. Specifically Disney's animators took a trip to Kenya's Hell's Gate National Park to prepare for the project. This is the bird list I'm going to attempt to draw from first. However, there are other signs that the movie takes place in South Africa. These very storks appear to fly over Victoria Falls a moment after this clip. Also, Simba later ends up in a desert, which doesn't really exist in Kenya. So the movie's not perfect, but it's certainly Africa, mostly Kenya, with a few incongruities. I wonder if new Lion King is more accurate..

By Yathin S Krishnappa - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25062828

Hitting all the classics early as you can see with the group of Flamingos. These appear, from the two-toned bill, to be Greater Flamingo. Do they live in Kenya? Yes, they do! So far, so good. Maybe this blog is gonna be super easy, huh?

By Sumeet Moghe - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=64855531

Slightly more of a challenge, but I can do this! Clearly Guineafowl, and we can narrow it down to the species that are native to Kenya (although you could make a case that animals from neighboring countries are making it to this important ceremony), the Crested, The Helmeted, and the Vulturine Guineafowl. The most accurate answer is probably Vulturine, seeing as these guineafowl have the prominent blue color and pointed breast feathers. They also lack the noticeable head ornamentation that both the crested and helmeted have. Now the wing-bar doesn't really add up, but I guess we can't be perfect.

Oh. Oh no. That's a lotta birds Disney's The Lion King. Do I gotta identify em' all? [looks at title I chose for blog that I certainly can't change now]. Ok, let's give it a go.

-An hour passes-

Ok, so these are my best guesses. To be honest with you, it became clear pretty quickly that most of these weren't *real* birds. However, the illustrator certainly had something in mind, at least in terms or family, for most of these. There are clear parrot, bird of paradise, kingfisher, flycatcher inspired shapes, and sometimes that's the best you can hope for. The truth is that this 2 second shot of an elephant with a ridiculous array of birds on his tusks is the real dark underbelly of The Lion King. Must've been the work of a rogue animator. Let's shake it off and move on, shall we?

By Atamari, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2479447

Wow, that was a lot of effort. Let's get back to something easy! Zazu, the only named bird character in the movie (offensive!) is identified as a hornbill in an upcoming musical number by Simba ("Kings don't need advice from little hornbills for a start"). What kind of hornbill is he? The internet seems really convinced that he's a Red-billed Hornbill. This fact is quoted on several zoo webpages (Oregon, Sacramento), Aviary.org, the Disney Wiki, and Zazu's own wikipedia entry. This is good enough for me, but I will register that the Crowned Hornbill might match his color pattern a little better and account for his raised crest. Whatever, you can't argue with the experts.

Speaking of "Just Can't Wait to Be King". This is where we get our Ostrich sequence. There are only two Ostrich-options, the Common Ostrich and the Somali Ostrich. Because this bird doesn't have a prominent blue neck, it's safe to call it the Common Ostrich. This one's easy. Ostrich.

By hyper7pro - Flickr: Vulture, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17194438

Time for another challenge! When fortunes have turned for Simba and he ends up wandering through a mystery desert, he is beset by Vultures. Do we have vulture options? Yes friends, we do. These vultures are drawn in the traditional Disney house-vulture-style, so we're looking for a bald headed bird that is black on top, white from underneath, ideally with a bit of fluff around the neck. I'm going to go with White-headed Vulture- even though they're not totally bald, they do have the best color matching of the options (if you wish to make your own decision, I was also considering Ruppel's Vulture, Lappet-faced Vulture, Hooded Vutlure, and African White-backed Vulture). Please note that Pumba calls these buzzards when he disperses them ("Bowling for Buzzards!"), but that shouldn't change anything about our ID, as he is clearly not even a hobbiest bird watcher.

Left: By Alandmanson - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=52834294
 Right: Me

After this, the action of the movie picks up, and there's largely not time for random birds any more. I know I was hoping for some action during the Hakuna Matata sequence, but no dice. They do appear one more time, right before the end title card pops up. Here Simba stands with Nala and presents his baby to the world, and once again, birds are in attendance. This scene may finally be where I throw in the towel.

As you can see a number of little white birds fly up to circle the young family. If we ZOOM and ENHANCE we can see at least a featured Egret, but the other birds look a lot like white doves, aka. Release Doves, aka. specially bred Rock Doves. And while Africa does have Rock Doves, they probably would not all coincidentally be white. It is theoretically possible that Rafiki went and bought some Release Doves from the magician store as a special treat for this presentation ceremony. If we were gonna go nature, the Emerald Spotted Dove is probably the lightest dove you could get around here. As for the Egret, Cattle Egret is the only choice that makes sense given the yellow-ish feet and beak.

Phew! We did it! And it only took like a whole day that I could've done other things during. Still, my conclusion is that the original animators definitely had really birds in mind when they created this Disney masterpiece, and perhaps most importantly to our core question, I felt they were identifiable. For the most part it's a testament to the expressive and suggestive powers of animation as an art. The original captures the essence of a thing without necessarily needing to recreate it perfectly. My only real gripe would probably be with Zazu, who is way too blue. I wonder if they fixed this in the new Lion King..

Oh! Well there you have it, never mind all that stuff I was saying before. The remake is officially better than the original! Goodnight folks.

White-breasted Nuthatch

White-breasted Nuthatch
Chestnut Hill Reservation, Brighton, Massachusetts, USA
June 2019
Member of the Nuthatch Family
§A Jar of Nuthatches§
★The Largest of the Nuthatches★ (Not for nothin, but still quite a small bird)

~true bird fact~ Like many birds, this one is monogamous. The reason for this arrangement is pretty easy to guess at, it makes both birds less likely to get surprised by a predator. This is also, evolutionarily, a reason many birds travel in flocks. However, this relationship isn't of equal benefit to both partners. The male nuthatch has to watch out less for predators, but the female has to also watch out for the male crowding her out of foraging areas. That means the male ends up better off, and the female, well, probably better off too, but not as much. Sounds familiar somehow... The ladies out there know what I'm talking about.

First Described by....

John Latham

(1740-1837)

This guy! This is a fun guy! I'm excited I get to talk about him, because I feel like in many ways, he's the spiritual predecessor to Amateurnithologist (this blog). We'll get there, but first, some boring stuff. He was an English physician and ornithologist, and the bulk of his work was in Australian birds, which began making their way to England in the 1780's. His first book, A General Synopsis of Birds (nailed it on the title) contained 106 illustrations, which he did himself, many of them never previous described in England. Sounds pretty awesome, but whoopsa-doopsa, he forgot to give them scientific names (the Linnean binomial system was pretty new at the time. He tried to fix his mistake by publishing the same book 10 years later, but this time with a latin title (Index Ornithologicus, still nailin' it) to go along with latin names for all the birds. Unfortunately by that point another dude had already named many of the birds that Lathan had first described, meaning the other guy gets the name and the credit. Still though, they were some pretty good birds that John here introduced to his Western audience, including Emu, Black Swan, and Hyacinth Macaw. No word on how this North American Nuthatch made it's way into his body of work.

He also was not particularly good at identifying birds- his books often had the same bird described multiple times with different names, causing confusion among Ornithologists for years to come. He was still publishing books in his 80's, and according to one reviewer his misidentifications only got worse with time. Quoth one Alfred Newton "his defect as a compiler, which had manifest itself before, rather increased with age, and the consequences were not happy." Ouch. Shoutout to a real one, John Latham, I know your struggle.

Horned Grebe

Horned Grebe aka. Slavonian Grebe (foreign)
Arrowhead Marsh, Oakland, California, USA
April 2019
Member of the Grebe Family
§A Waterdance of Grebes§

~true bird fact~ These Grebes swallow their own feathers in order to create a 'plug' in their stomach, which helps them filter out fish bones and other harder to digest materials. Parent Grebes will even feed their young these feathers, to get this system going earlier. Makes you wonder why we humans don't eat feathers.

 ~real bird legend~ According to the Blackfoot Native tribe, the Horned Grebe is always the first to spot danger. This is because the Old Man trickster fooled a bunch of ducks into dancing for him with their eyes closed. In this state he was able to bonk them on the head and kill them, but this Grebe, the smallest of the ducks present, peeked, and was able to escape and sound the alarm. This is also how he got his red eyes.

How Endangered Are They? Well, let's start with the good news- there are a lot of these Grebes still remaining- somewhere between 200 and 500,000. Another item to be optimistic about- they have a pretty global distribution living all across North America and Eurasia. However, these birds are going fast. Within the last 30 years, their global numbers have declined by 30%. The picture is much worse in North America where the declined is a much steeped 79%.  The reason? All the usual stuff, all our fault. Climate change, human disturbance of breeding habitat, the destruction of wetlands, and oil spills. We've even messed up their food supply of aquatic insects by introducing Rainbow Trout into bodies of water for fishing purposes. These birds are really getting it from every angle, sadly. My hope is that having survived the machinations of the trickster god, the Horned Grebes can survive us too.

Yellow-headed Blackbird

Yellow-headed Blackbird
Woodland Water Pollution Control Facility, Woodland, California, USA
April 2019
Member of the Blackbird Family
§A Cloud of Blackbirds§
★The Worst Song of Any North American Bird(?)★ Described in my various sources as "a strange mixture of honking, gurgling and strangling noises", "a rusty farm gate opening", "hoarse, harsh scraping", and "bizarre grinding", there seems to be broad agreement that it's pretty bad. Judge for yourself here.

~true bird fact~ Yellow-headed Blackbirds have an interesting way of foraging en-masse. Birds from the back will always fly first, 'rotating' to the front, which gives the flock the appearance of rolling across a landscape. Very aesthetic, and very fair.


Quick to make friends
Talks about the memes he likes, loudly and publically
Has an explanation for everything, even if that explanation doesn't really make sense. At least you know he's thought about it.

Tricolored Blackbird

Tricolored Blackbird
Vanden Road, Vacaville, California, USA
April 2019
Member of the Blackbird Family
§A Merl of Blackbirds§
★North America's Most Colonial Landbird★ (see below to find out what that means)

~true bird fact~ To encourage their fledglings to leave the nest, parents will arrive with food, but then, instead of feeding the babies, immediately fly off again. This encourages the young to follow. Good parenting? Bad parenting? Sound off in the comments.

Sings badly, but enthusiastically
Can say something off the cuff that just sounds like a well known quote
Pays attention to keeping their white patch looking really white. If it were mine it would probably have a stain on it in seconds. How do they do it?



How Endangered Are They? Classified as 'Threatened' by the IUCN (that's the middle one). There's a lot of disagreement on how many of these nice birds there are now, but everyone seems to agree they're in quite a lot of danger. In my research, I saw numbers between 145,000 and 300,00, depending what year and who was estimating, and everyone seems to think numbers are still declining pretty precipitously. A significant loss, regardless, for a bird that used to number in the millions. Why so endangered? Well, like many birds that have been wiped out (think Passenger Pigeons), they are colonial breeders- meaning that their breeding colonies are relatively few, but in extremely high numbers. Descriptions exist of million-bird flocks. This kind of breeding helped protect colonies from predation. However, now that the marshy habitat they breed in is so regularly lost to development, there are few places that can support such great numbers of birds. The group I observed was probably less than a hundred. Many of the few places that would support them are farm land, which get harvested regularly, leading to massive causalities. Combine this with their small range (they are basically only in California's central valley), and you have a recipe for disaster. Still, many people are trying to save them. They're a 'priority bird' for the Audubon society, and they have their own webpage and conservation program over at UC Davis. Let's all cross our fingers that we can get it together for the Tricolored Blackbirds

For comparison purposes, this is a Red-winged Blackbird, a close relative. They flock together with Tricoloreds and sometimes these guys even have yellow epaulets to make you even more confused. You're looking for bright white. Also, their call is much different.