The Brewer Blackbird 

 No. 14 



Brewer's Blackbird 



A. O. U. No. 510 part. Euphagus cyanocephalus cyanocephalus (Wagler). 



Description. — Adult male: Glossy black with steel-blue and violet reflections on 

 head; with fainter, greenish, steel blue, and bronzy reflections elsewhere. Bill and feet 

 black; iris pale lemon-yellow or light cream. Immature male: Like adult male, but 

 feathers of foreparts margined with grayish brown, lightly on throat and chest, broadly 

 on cervix and back. Adult female: Foreparts (head and neck all around, upper back 

 and chest) grayish brown (hair-brown to drab), the throat lighter, light drab; shading 

 posteriorly into mingled drab and black of remaining plumage; the blacks with some 

 metallic reflections, chiefly green and violet. Bill and feet as in male; but iris brown. 

 Immature females and young birds of both sexes resemble adult female. Length about 

 254 (10.00). Av. of 8 males from Rocky Mountain section (Grinnell): wing 131 (5.16); 

 tail (from base of uropygium) 1 14.5 (4.50); tarsus 19.6 (.77); exposed culmen 19.6 (.77); 

 depth of bill at nostril 8.1 (.32). Females slightly smaller. 



v.. *ij£ 



Taken in Santa Barbara County 



Photo by the Author 



A PASTORAL 



Recognition Marks. — Robin size; pure black coloration with metallic reflections; 

 and whitish eye of male. Larger than Cowbird (Molothrus ater), with which alone it is 

 likely to be confused. 



Nesting. — Nest: placed at moderate height in bush or tree; often in close colonies 

 in trees (live oak, white oak, or cotton wood) infested by mistletoe; less frequently on 

 ground at base of bush; more rarely in a cranny of cliff or cavity of decayed tree trunk; 

 a sturdy, tidy structure of interlaced twigs and grasses, strengthened by a matrix of 

 mud or of dried cowdung, and carefully lined with coiled rootlets or horsehair. Nests 

 in colonies, usually straggling, of from six or eight to twenty or thirty pairs. Eggs: 



S3 



