ML632313892

Behaketaren xehetasunak

*Delightful. Great to have in numbers above one or two, and even better to experience them in their full splendor. Having seen the single largest decline of any non-extinct North American passerine, RUBL are not easy to come by out East anymore, and any non-flyovers are a rare treat. One of my hopes for my trip this evening was to indeed spend some quality time with a RUBL, should I be lucky enough to find any. After spending sometime with the BWTE, I began birding the vegetated stretch of creek that extended from the outflow of the lake. I birded this in search of LOWA and RUBL, and soon after beginning, a wonderfully-RUBL-like blackbird flushed from the creek bed. Moments later, a second bird appears as well. It took sometime to relocate this bird since I was on the wrong side of the creek and had to back track my steps, but eventually I heard one singing, and looked up to see this bird in the low hanging branches of a tamarack. Over the next 30 minutes, I watched as this bird and its companion perched up and sang bountifully and fed in the creek bed. Both were typically confiding, as is expected with RUBL, but their tendency for dense trees meant getting unobstructed views was tough. Both birds were males, with one showing marginal rusting and one almost entirely black. After getting to hear them sing and watch them feed in a creek for the first time in years (two signature RUBL experiences that I’ve been deprived of for too long), I left the pair, only to encounter flyover groups of five and two as I wake back to Carter’s. These included some females as well.