photoartflightFemale Red-Winged Blackbird
These are images taken from a previous trip to the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, Brigantine Division in Oceanville, NJ. Along the Wildlife Drive you see many birds in the vegetation along the sides of the Wildlife Drive either foraging for a meal or just hanging out on vegetation & bushes. Most of the Drive has water on both sides of the Wildlife Drive which also provides a lot of photo opportunities. Also there are many Gulls overhead that have found clams on the shorelines. They fly above the Wildlife Drive & drop the clams on the road. Once they fall on the road and crack open, they fly off to eat their meal. I guess it easier to open then. We have not had any hit the car, but some came close. So there are many photo opportunities along the Wildlife Drive. On this day there were a lot of Red-winged Blackbirds along the Wildlife Drive. But you have a better chance to get nice images if you do not try to get too close since they will just fly off. I usually use a 400mm Canon DO lens with either a 1.4x or 2x teleconverter so we do not have to get too close.
Vertical View of Red-winged Blackbird, 400mm DO lens with 1.4x teleconverter
photoartflight 
She posed very nicely for you!
Yes she did! It is always nice when they cooperate😊
A female Red-winged Blackbird was one of the first birds that opened my eyes to the complexity of identification–I literally did not believe a friend when he told me that a bird I photographed was a red-winged blackbird–it was not black and did not have red wings. I was a bit naive when I was starting out. Those are both beautiful captures of the female that is usually harder to photograph than the male, which tries to make himself as visible as he can.
Thanks Mike! It does seem the males are seen more seen than females. From what I had read, males are usually more visible because they tend to be higher up on the shrubs calling out, where females feed lower down and are less noisy. Do not know if that is true, but seems to be what I have seen.
Sounds like a beautiful scene. I’ve always been partial to the female red wing blackbird, and I love seeing them against the tufts of this plant.
Thanks so much! I also like the Female Red-Winged Blackbird more than the male. They seem more photogenic than the noisy male!