Everywhere I look I am seeing huge flocks of blackbirds….

They fill the treetops, they mob the ground. You can see them along the side of the highway, around bird feeders or in fields….

Most of the flocks are mixed–with lots of starlings such as the ones above, grackles, red winged blackbirds and cowbirds….

Every fall about this time I will suddenly hear a huge ruckus out in my back yard and find hundreds of blackbirds gathering in my holly trees….

They sometimes strip them but usually, like this year, they leave plenty behind for the winter birds….

Blackbirds will hang around for a few more weeks but one morning we will wake and the sky and trees will be strangely silent and all the utility wires will just look like strings between poles…