It’s Only February But The Red-winged Blackbirds Are Singing Anyways.

Yesterday, as I drove the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge auto tour route, I began to hear a most familiar and very welcomed sound, the song of the male red-winged blackbird (video posted below).

I don’t know about you but, oh, how I love to hear that soothing melody each and every spring when temperatures are rising and birds of many different species are returning to the refuge for another breeding season.

It wasn’t just one male blackbird singing alone, mind you, but multiple males enthusiastically sounding off in close proximity of one other, behavior indicative of territorial disputes and attracting females that is very common and expected during April but quite unusual, to say the least, for the second week in February.

This winter, however, has been anything but “business as usual” with regard to birdwatching and photographing on the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge and yesterday’s early chorus of singing blackbirds is just one more anomaly to add to that growing list I suppose.

To try and put it all into context, several weeks ago the thermometer dipped down to the single digits at night, well below the freezing mark, for a week or so, and last week we broke, some would even say shattered is a more accurate description, records with a few days in the low 60’s.

In fact, the wetlands on the bird refuge have frozen, thawed, and refroze again several times during the past couple of months from the up-and-down kind of winter we are currently having.

This week the weather has settled into a more typical pattern with freezing nights and a few degrees on the plus side of the thermometer during the afternoons but who knows how long that will last.

Add to these back-and-forth temperatures almost no measurable snowfall for the valley floor all winter long and I am wondering if the birds even know what month it is.

Somedays I even question the calendar, looking at it twice to reassure myself what month it is when I find myself birdwatching in a t-shirt during the first week of February.

With all of this said, however, I will mention that hearing an occasional red-winged blackbird sing during the dreads of winter isn’t totally unheard of by the way, on rare occasions I have heard a lone male sing a couple of random notes but I can’t remember a winter when I have listened to multiple males actively singing against one another like I did yesterday.

If I hadn’t been wearing 4 layers of clothing and the heater turned all the way up in my car, I would have surmised from just the blackbird songs resonating along the auto loop it was the middle of April but, sadly, the calendar currently lays claim to February which means spring is, well, still five very long weeks away.

I don’t know about anybody else but hearing the sweet melody of the multiple male red-winged blackbirds was exactly what this birdwatcher needed yesterday, the reassurance that spring is, maybe slowly but surely, on its way and birdwatching along the refuge auto tour route will pick up soon as migratory birds return to their summer breeding grounds.

(Singing Red-winged Blackbirds. For short nature photography tips and interesting stories about the natural world around us, subscribe to our Bear River Blogger channel on YouTube for videos and updates from our travels while out in nature, both on and off of the famed Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge.)