By JOHN TROTT

By JOHN TROTT

Rappahannock Newa Special Writer

Now, in March, blackbirds return. Yesterday, at the Flint Hill. Post Office, a lady said to me: “Those blackbirds are back. The shiny ones that point their bills up.”

She then demonstrated by looking toward the sky as if she had just spotted a bald eagle soaring overhead. “There are too many of them,” she continued. “All the other birds leave the feeder. Even the jays.”

Somehow she knew I am supposed to know about birds, or think I do. I explained that the birds are grackles: Common Grackles to give them their proper names.

Her description was accurate so I knew she was not talking about starlings or Red-winged Blackbirds. Though starlings, European Starlings to be exact, do have iridescent plumage, their feathers do not throw back light and change colors as those of grackles. Starlings have very short tails, and a grackle’s tail is long. Male Red-' winged Blackbirds have no iridescence. Besides that, redwings are much smaller than grackles as are starlings.

I just looked up the spelling of iridescent. The word is tricky to spell. As usual with me, I got involved in the definition: “A rainbowlike play of colors, as in the soap bubble, mother-of-pearl, etc.” .Hummingbirds could have been added, for their plumage is startling in its ability to change colors and reflect light. In certain light that smallest of all birds looks black, but let the light on feathers strike just right, and the bird glows like an emerald, and the red throat of a male gives the bird its name, Rubythroated.

A Common Grackle up close and in the right light can be a wondrous sight. Get the sun behind you and the grackle in front and marvel at the electric blue sheen on the head and throat. The feathers on the bird’s wings and batik glint with a greenish bronze luster.. Colors