After trying to pay attention I am seeing birds with different color beaks but haven't paid attention to the tails so that will be my next thing to look after. I am believing that there are different types of birds around here now as there are some that have dark beaks and some with light, don't know about my fish thief though as I havne't seen it happen again. I have realized some have yellow eyes and some black but did not pay attention to beak color, again, at the same time as the eyes. I need to be more observant. There are also some that land on my feeder and eat and some that forage the ground and some that walk like pigeons with the bobbing head. I'm trying to pay more attention when I have spare times to sit and watch and tell the difference between the different types I'm seeing and their behaviors so maybe I can figure this out and learn more about what is in my yard. My first instinct was the martin because of the colonies and I always see them flying, as described (When I first moved here I thought they were some kind of hawk babies because of their flight). Now I'm realizing that there are more than one type of birds that I'm seeing.

Herons sometimes spear fish, leaving holes and marks on them, but other times will snatch with those ugly beaks of theirs. The only way it would have dropped the fish would be if something startled it away or the fish was too big to consume. I'm thinking the fish are probably jumping. Fish will jump for a variety of reasons. They will jump if parasites are bothering them (i.e. flukes, etc), but they will also jump if there has been a sharp change in ph, which irritates their skin. Test the water and see what your readings are. If the ph is low, add some baking soda to bring it up. I also use koi clay, which contains beneficial minerals. I had jumpers this spring, which stopped when I adjusted the ph and used the clay.

Thanks! It definitely was not the rusty blackbird, that bird has a "cute" head like a chickadee but the one I saw was more "scary" like a crow or like the brewer's blackbird you mentioned. It doesn't 100% look like that either so who knows! I wish I could remember the beak color, if it was black or yellow. It was pretty big too, bigger than a Robin which I have a million of around here. Not as big as a crow though. Hmmm!

The boat tail grackles began coming to this area a few years ago (& most of the starlings-thankfully- then began to leave!). I do think they are beautiful & laugh at their 'look at me!' demeaner & take over our 50 ft. red cedar tree for their noisey 'conferences!but I don't like their aggressive behavior towards other birds! The ones here have black beaks. Am told they rob other bird's nests, eat the eggs, kill & eat the baby birds so am wondering when I see them fly with a small object in their beaks if it is the mosquito eating minnows that we keep (they are live bearers) in the small fish pond. I see them stand on the edge of the pond on rocks to drink & bath so guess when they see one of the top swimming (not to 'bright!) minnows they could catch one? Now we are putting netting over the small inground pond to be safe! Guess we can hope for a new variety of bird to come in when (? if) the grackles move on to an other area of the U.S. Odd, how here we seem to have these migrations of different varieties of birds! Few years ago we had ONE pair of mourning doves in our area.... now they are all over! Then the starlings came & took over for awhile but are a lot fewer now since the grackles arrived. We had one pair of curved billed threshers (orange eyes) three years ago & now our yard has dozens & some build nests in our cactus & seem to be not afraid at all ... even chase the resident squirrel! Now the influx of so many toads to our yard & pond ... THAT is another mystery! They are not afraid & seldom move away & don't seem to be of interest to any of our dogs even when the dogs sniff them at the pond... do they have no aroma or maybe it is offensive to the dogs? Now the blue tail lizzards keep the dogs in a perpetual/fruitless chase!! What a blessing of on-going 'fun' in our small city lot in the high desert!