Birdland: A Real Stunner

The Yellow-Headed Blackbird is what we’d call a real stunner in the plumage department, with its beautiful golden head, black wings and a white patch. But when it comes to this bird’s melody, the experts call it as they hear it: “It may have the worst song of any North American bird, a hoarse, harsh scraping,” Audubon reports. Others compare the sound to the opening of a rusty farm gate. Yellow-Headed Blackbirds breed and roost in freshwater wetlands with dense vegetation, like the cattails shown here. This photo was taken by Mark Silverstein at Bluff Lake Wildlife Refuge, just east of Park Hill.