• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Shiny Cowbird? (1 Viewer)

rka

ttbirds
Snapped this one on the outskirts of the Caroni Swamp. Looks like a cowbird. Was 4" long, generally black with clear patches of shiny blue. There were also white feathers. I'll attach another image showing the back of the bird.
 

Attachments

  • 8crop.jpg
    8crop.jpg
    50.1 KB · Views: 284
OK ... Something has changed here. I can't figure out how to insert an image in a reply. A pity ... the picture of the back clearly showed the blue and white plumage.

rka
 
Last edited:
Could be. His bill looks much more like a seedeater than the shiny cowbird. Also, 4 inches fits the grassquits. They (males) are typically a very shiny Black, with an almost metallic blue sheen. Not really patches of blue, just the sheen. They do have some white spots that are ocassionally seen.

One real givaway is their behavior. The males rest on a perch, give a chirp and jump vertically upwards about 1 to 2 feet in a display, landing again in the same perch.

We have tons of them here in my area and they are really interesting to watch.
 
The bird was perched in a tree in a shaded area and didn't jump once in a 15 minute period while I watched it. It was preening and rotating slowly in the same spot.

It made a lot of intermittent noise. I'm not good at describing bird calls ... sorry.

rka
 
Others already made a perfectly good point and they are completely right, it is indeed a Blue-black Grasquit. It's a male, females are brownish.
Of course it is hard to judge from a photo, but grasquits are quite small birds. Very unlike Blackbirds/Cowbirds/Gracklers from South America (incl. Trinidad), it also has a different bill. Compared to varios other species also note eye-colour, very different short-tailed jizz and the way a few light feathers show through the otherwise glossy plumage. Whatever the case, it is a very different bird from the Shiny Cowbird, and in general I would consider it unlikely to mistake the two for each other (again: Size+jizz!).

Ohh. I almost forgot. The voice of Shiny Cowbird compared with Blue-black Grasquit... we're talking a difference like night and day!
 
Last edited:
Warning! This thread is more than 20 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top