To me, one of the most iconic sights of both the Yellow-headed and Red-winged Blackbirds is one where they straddle two cattails, reminiscent of an acrobatic performance like those in Cirque du Soleil. The marshes in the Sierra Valley are filled with both Yellow-headed and Red-winged Blackbirds but most of the time, they seem to be perched on a metal fence pole supporting barbed wire or on the barbed wire itself. We were lucky to find a few that perched on marsh plants like cattails and even luckier to find even fewer straddling two cattails. This male Yellow-headed Blackbird looks straight at my lens, seemingly thinking something like, “so you think this is easy?”