John Bull in his "Birds of New York State" has a section on migration of Redwing Blackbirds. I used this as a reference in a biology course I audited after retirement. Here is an excerpt from what I wrote: During the spring migration, 100,000 were recorded at Montezuma on March 22, 1958. In the early 1900's Arthur Allen kept a three year record of Red-wings migrating through Ithaca. From their plumage he was able to distinguish males from females and adult birds from those hatched the previous year. The record he reports is for 1911 and as he remarks the actual dates will vary from year to year, but the order in which the males and females, migrants and residents will remain. (I wonder if there has been any significant shift in the 80 years since Dr. Allen made his study.) Here is what he found: males arrive on the scene, followed two weeks later by the resident females. The migrants that appear are presumably on their way to Canada while the immature birds that will take up residence may have been searching for green pastures.

Blackbird squabbles bothered me, with one pair attacking another pair's baby, etc. Plus they would try to roost on my house. And peck at all my growing things. So, since I have soil with plenty of small rocks I started waving my arms and then throwing rocks NEAR them, not at them. After a few days they learned that arm-waving precedes the rocks, and they would fly away. Next I would slam a door or sliding window before going outside to waive my arms. Persistence paid off and from then on the blackbirds were deterred from spending much time at my place just by slamming a window or door. The next year they only needed a few days of re-training. My neighbors down the street often have fifty blackbirds on their property. I seldom have any.

And today's hawk is... maybe the same sharpie? It landed on the rose just outside my kitchen window and only stayed for a minute or less - just enough time for me to grab the camera which was close by. My impression was that the hawk was smaller than the usual Cooper's I see here, but that's hard to judge. This is the best shot I got of the tail; not very good Full face but without the breast. Profile. Head is maybe more rounded than the Cooper's here. The back is brown, not gray, so I figured it's a juvenile, but there's no obvious cap with a lighter nape if it happens to be an adult. When it took off I got the only look at the belly which looks more like an adult with a barred pattern. A lousy shot but the bird didn't cooperate. Today is the first day of my Project FeederWatch weekly count so I also emailed PFW with the pics. Just for comparison with a juvenile Cooper's Hawk, this pic was taken on 11/25/11 in the same position outside my kitchen window. Claire This post was edited by claire on Mon, Mar 11, 13 at 15:49

Thank you! I suppose one is a photographer if one takes photos, but I've not bought any professional cameras or sold anything. Since DuBois bought me Canon Powershot S2 IS 12 X zoom and Olympus SP-550 18 X zoom point-and-shoot cameras I've taken photos but was disappointed in the picture quality, so Gail suggested I buy a DSLR. DuBois' mom sent Christmas money in 2007, so I did research and bought a Canon EOS 40-D camera and Canon EF 400mm f/5.6 L lens in Jan. 2008. It's taken a long time to get the hang of it, and even now, most of the photos have to be deleted-I'll typically take 300 photos and keep 13. At first I used tripods, but now just handhold or brace my arm against my knee. I still have to get VERY close for the photos to look like anything, so it's mostly about knowing the bird calls, habitat, habits, and trying to gain an advantage with height, lighting, etc I try to get close enough to use the auto-focus, but it only works well in strong light, with no surrounding branches. To compensate for my eyesight, I usually twist the manual focus back and forth as I shoot rapidly, in hopes that something will be in focus