Rusty

This was a first for me. Another birder said, "There's a rusty blackbird near the wooden bridge." A rusty what??? Never heard of this let alone seen one. Had I seen this bird myself my brain would have thought, "strange female grackle ?", but of course it's not like a grackle, or anything else I'd ever seen before. It's very pretty. And different. It was in the muddy end of the Gill tossing leaves, finding snails, cracking snail shells with beak and eating the snails. I can't even remember the last time I saw a black bird let alone a rusty one. Interesting surprise. Live and learn.

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