Minnesota Marshes and Lakes Are a Home to the Red-wing Blackbird
"There’s a red-winged blackbird. .. I whack Chris’s knee and point to it. .. "What!" he hollers. .. "Blackbird!" .. He says something I don’t hear. "What?" I holler back. .. He grabs the back of my helmet and hollers up, "I’ve seen lots of those, Dad!" .. "Oh!" I holler back. Then I nod. At age eleven you don’t get very impressed with red-winged blackbirds. You have to get older for that. For me this is all mixed with memories that he doesn’t have. Cold mornings long ago when the marsh grass had turned brown and cattails were waving in the northwest wind. The pungent smell then was from muck stirred up by hip boots while we were getting in position for the sun to come up and the duck season to open. Or winters when the sloughs were frozen over and dead and I could walk across the ice and snow between the dead cattails and see nothing but grey skies and dead things and cold. The blackbirds were gone then."
Photo of RWBB East of Maple Lake MN needed
************************************ (Photo = 103-0313c …… ZMM Page = 003 WayPt = 000 = Photo is actually at WayPt = 026w 16 Mi NE of Oakes ND.)