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You’ve likely had this happen to you.
You’re on your way home with a family member, maybe a spouse, child or parent.
It’s late in the evening, you haven’t had dinner, and you want to get home.
You see something interesting on the way home.
Do you stop?
Or head home so you can finally sit down to eat a late dinner? Continue reading Photo of the Week: Cattle Egret in Michigan
The charming Least Flycatcher isn’t as large as other flycatchers, nor as brilliantly colored as migrating warblers in our area.
But the smallest flycatcher in the eastern portion of the United States stands out in the hedgerows and trees with its upright posture and bold white eyering.
Least Flycatchers are seen in our southeastern Michigan area at the same time as colorful warblers heading north to their breeding grounds.
And because many birders are on the lookout for warblers, they often overlook the Least Flycatcher with its white sidebars and yellowish wash on its white belly.
I’m a fan of the Least Flycatcher.
It’s a bird that pauses long enough on a branch for me to admire its coloring, posture, and markings before it flies off to another branch.
Where it perches long enough for me to get another good look at it.
When I first saw the two birds in the grass near the marsh, I did a double-take.
They weren’t Eastern Meadowlarks, they didn’t have the right coloring.
Or the type of bill a meadowlark would have.
As I peered through my binoculars and watched the birds’ behavior, I finally figured it out.
Yellow-headed Blackbirds!
Not male Yellow-headed Blackbirds with their distinctive bright yellow heads, which I last saw in May 2019 at Howard Marsh near Bono, Ohio.
The two birds were females with a muted yellow color on their face and top of breast.
I always observe Yellow-headed Blackbirds in the same marshy areas that Red-headed Blackbirds reside.
What I didn’t know was that Yellow-headed Blackbirds are dominant to Red-headed Blackbirds.
According to All About Birds, the Yellow-headed Blackbird displaces the smaller Red-headed Blackbird from prime nesting spots and may attract up to eight females to nest in his prime nesting reeds.
About five minutes later, I saw a male Yellow-headed Blackbird perched on top of a reed in the marsh.