New England meadows are filled these days with the call of the red-winged black birds (Agelaius phoeniceus). These are either mating calls or territorial calls. The male red-wings have a tough life by many standards. They are polygynous and each male is typically defending the nest of multiple females. To make matters worse, cow birds love to lay their eggs in red-wing nests. So much so that a recent Standford University study found that “up to 50 percent of Red-winged Blackbird nestings carry no genes of the territorial male.”

So it was not that surprising that last night I encountered the very distressed and aggressive male red-wing of Figure 1 jumping around and squawking his head off as if to shout “beat it.” Did he think I was after one of his harem or did he think I wanted to lay and egg in one of his nests? Did he think I was another male red-wing or a cow bird? Without doubt I was too close.