This has been an interesting week in the backyard. First Vlad the Nutcracker Impaler and his handy work and then we had this red-winged blackbird show up. While not an uncommon bird by any stretch except… I’ve never had one in the backyard before. He’s alone but has been around since Saturday and seems healthy. We have nothing but pine forest around us for miles, though any water areas are still frozen over right now anyway. I guess he’s going to hang out with us until things thaw out. As you can see by this photo, he’s serenading us too, which I totally don’t mind at all.

With a long, dagger-like bill, I always suspected these birds as being dangerous to smaller ones though I hadn’t read anywhere that they will kill other birds, only feed on carrion. But on Saturday, I witnessed a Clark’s Nutcracker catch and kill a pine grosbeak. It caught it with it’s claws, taking it to the ground, where it used it’s sharp bill as a dagger and stabbed the grosbeak until it was dead. Then it began to eat it. I was kind of surprised. Clark’s Nutcrackers are members of the corvid family which includes ravens, crows, jays, and nutcrackers. Given that other members of the corvid family are known to kill and eat other birds, especially young still in nests, I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised by what I witnessed.

Happy birthday to Yellowstone National Park! On this date in 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Yellowstone Protection Act into law, creating Yellowstone National Park as the world’s first national park, 148 years ago!