Blackbirds in your yard
A flock of blackbirds in your yard is most often a mixed crowd of grackles, red-winged blackbirds, cowbirds and starlings, feeding side by side because many eyes are safer than two. It is the unchosen company we all keep, in feathers.
What it may mean
A flock of black birds that drops onto a lawn is rarely one kind of bird. In fall and winter, red-winged blackbirds, common grackles, cowbirds and starlings often travel together, walking the grass in a loose line and lifting off at once when one of them startles. They are not friends; feeding among many eyes is simply safer than feeding alone. A 1903 collection called such a landing a meeting and foretold a year of increase for the land where it was held. Most people have mixed flocks of their own: the parents at the bus stop, the regulars at the gym, the colleagues brought together by one shared project. Nobody chose that company, and it still keeps an eye out for everyone in it. To the Ute, a tree full of squabbling blackbirds, crows and magpies foretold a winter of heavy snow.
Depending on how you saw it
Grackles dunking bread in the birdbath
The glossy birds with pale yellow eyes and long tails are common grackles. They walk rather than hop, and some carry dry crusts to a birdbath and soak them before eating. What small habit of yours would puzzle a stranger but makes perfect sense to you?
Black birds flying over in spring
In the highlands of Guatemala, a landscaper told a folklore collector, farmers waited each April for hundreds of small black birds to fly over the town; forty days later the rains began, and when the birds came back in November the dry season set in. Which return in your year signals that it is time to plant something?
Red shoulders tucked away
Male red-winged blackbirds feeding in a mixed flock on neutral ground keep their red shoulder patches mostly covered, often showing only a thin yellow line, and flash the full red on their own patch of marsh, where it means the spot is taken. What do you keep tucked away among strangers and show only on your own ground?
Why it happens in nature
In North America, the black birds that crowd lawns and fields in fall and winter are mainly red-winged blackbirds, common grackles and brown-headed cowbirds, often joined by European starlings. Mixed flocks feed on seeds, waste grain and insects, and a large group spots predators faster than a lone bird. At night they gather in shared roosts that can hold enormous numbers.
What folk beliefs say
Ute
Among the Ute, crows, magpies and blackbirds seen in the same tree at once, squabbling and fighting, were a sign of heavy snowfalls in the coming winter.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 585. View the page
Guatemala (highlands)
In the Guatemalan highlands, farmers watched for hundreds of small black birds flying over town in April; the rains were expected about forty days later, and the birds' return in November marked the start of the dry season.
Source: Allison Avila-Olivares (collector), The Blackbirds of Los Terrones (USC Digital Folklore Archive) (2015), folklore.usc.edu. View the page
Bermuda
In Bermuda, a blackbird in the house was a sign of death.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 587. View the page
To reflect on
Which group of unlike people do you move through your week with, and what does it give you?