Please...Correct me or confirm me...

I first saw it during the leafless pre-spring of 2010. It was in the man-made copse of Willow Oak in front of the Holocaust Memorial and to the east. The Memorial is located in the Inner Harbor of Baltimore on Lombard Street. The copse is an area well known amongst birders as a haven for birds in all seasons and for the homeless, a protection from the heat of the day. It sits just to the west of The Community College of Baltimore City.

On the cold morning as I did my morning search for species during early migration, I came upon a bird that I had never noticed before. It perched quietly on a bare limb some 10 or 12 feet above and it did it for a long enough time that I could size it up. It was an overcast morning and I did not suffer the ill-effects or enjoy the boon that good lighting could offer.

In this small woods are many birds year round. They are mostly common birds such as the Robin, House Sparrow and Starling. This one was different. It was very dark-from my vantage point it appeared solidly and satinly black. It was about twice the size of the local Starlings and sported a tail that was much longer. The tail had the broad end feature like a Common Grackle. It was much smaller than a Grackle however. It was also much quieter than that bird and when it did squawk, it was not close to that of a Grackle.

Sans any sort of recording material including a pen and paper (I would have wrote on my hand had I a pen), I had to make as many mental notes as I could about the bird. Knowing that it also was not a Fish Crow, I took note of those things described above but also of the distinct gold ring around the eyes. With my memories as fresh as possible I went to my office; I gathered up my Peterson’s guide to Birds of Eastern and Central North America.
I came to the conclusion that it was a Brewer’s Blackbird. I shared this information with several birding friends, some voicing enough skepticism for me to defend what I had seen and others remarking that what I had seen was a rarity (forcing me to doubt my sighting). Then I did not see any reminder of this bird for several weeks and thought it a vain quest to correctly identify it and was left wondering what I had seen.

In April as I returned to the little brushwood in order to get a vantage point on the Peregrines that perched high above on two different building. There some 20 feet away and pecking at the ground was what looked to be the same species that I had seen before. I tried to close in a little bit for a better look but before I could be even a bit definitive, it flew off. It was too big for a Starling and lacked the array of golden breast dots; it was too small for a Grackle and as it launched it squawked a noise that was not a Fish Crow (why would the Crow be in the little haven anyway?).

This new information led me to do a daily look in the area. The bird apparently feeds between about 7:30am and 10:00am as I found by taking a daily excursion to the area. I continued to examine it as closely as possible to determine its behavior-for instance it is a ground feeder and discovered that there were several of them living in the tiny urban woods of about 300 feet by 50 feet. Every day they pranced and lunged in the gravel, often flying over a tall fence to a grassy area on the north side of the Monument where all of them would catch very large food bits which I imagined to be larva of some kind as they could devour them in a few minutes. Still it was difficult to see them in good lighting as they remained either in or under the canopy of the now fully leaved Willow Oaks or other trees on the north side. They would only let me get about 20 feet away and none of the photos I had tried to take had the lighting required to really gain some confidence in accurate identification.

I turned to my better skill. I am a much better researcher than I am an observer. Here is what I found:

The Brewer’s Blackbird is a very adaptable animal and is known to observe the feeding habits of other birds and mimic (quite successfully) the others. I saw an article that described this species hanging out in the parking lot of a western American mall and attacking the grills of parked cars for sustenance. They also flock with other species of similar (sort of) habits one being the Red Wing Blackbird. The Brewer’s likes marshy and reedy areas and small crustaceans’ best. They won’t find any of that here and the skepticism of my own early identification increased.

None of my field guides suggested that they could be found in Maryland. They are a western bird living from Mexico to Alberta but not in Maryland except in very rare circumstances. My doubt grew and yet they are listed in the “Checklist of the Birds of Maryland”. The bird sure looks like a Brewer’s but I had to wonder if I merely wanted it to be a Brewer’s.

So I continued to study and look for similar species and the best one I could come up with was a Rusty Blackbird. Here is why-they forage off the ground, have a territory (according to the many guides used) that could include on its fringes, Maryland. It’s physical appearance and sounds are very similar to the Brewers buts its habits more closely related to what I keep seeing in my early morning constitutional through the shaded copse in front of the Holocaust Memorial.

One day late last fall I took another one of my constitutionals, this one a day break brisk walk around the National Aquarium to see if any unique Gulls show up. I was thrilled to see for only one time, two Greater Black Backs. It is worth my 10 minute walk to see if something unique occurs. It rarely does. In the fall the gulls are rife and they are about 90% Ring Billed and about 10% Laughing Gulls; one day there were Greater Black Backs as well. It may never happen again but I will continue with my quick examination every morning.

Today (07.26.2010) while walking past the submarine museum that flanks the Aquarium on the west, I saw perched, one of my mystery birds and discovered something I could not detect under the shade of the arbor by the Memorial. There actually is a little “brownness” to the bird I have been watching daily for the last 90 or so days.

Today I convinced myself that there are several Rusty Blackbirds living in the cool shade of the little copse in front of the Memorial and to the west of the Community College.