The Yellow-headed Blackbird 



in pitch. This is 

 the note of fierce 

 altercation, or the 

 distress cry in 

 imminent danger. 

 Once I heard it 

 in the rank herb- 

 age bordering 

 upon a shallow 

 lake in eastern 

 Washington. I 

 rushed in to find 

 a big blow-snake 

 coiling just be- 

 low a nestful of 

 young birds, 

 while the 

 agonized parents 

 and sympathetic 

 neighbors 

 hovered over the 

 spot crying pite- 

 ously. To stamp 

 upon the reptile 

 was the work of 

 but a moment; 

 and when I drop- 

 ped the limp 

 ophidian upon 

 the ground, all the 

 blackbird popula- 

 tion gathered 

 about the car- 

 cass, shuddering but exultant, and — perhaps it was only fancy — grateful 

 too. 



For all the Yellow-head is so decided in utterance, in disposition he 

 is somewhat phlegmatic, the male bird especially lacking the vivacity 

 which characterizes the agile Brewer Blackbird. Except when hungry, 

 or impelled by passion, he is quite content to mope for hours at a time in 

 the depths of the reeds; and even in nesting time, when his precincts are 

 invaded, he oftener falls to admiring his own plumage in the flooding sun- 



Photo by the Author 



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