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Rusty Blackbird : Rusty Blackbird Cukcugli What a coincidence. Just moments before starting to write this article, guess what flew over? Yep, Rusty blackbirds, a small troupe of them, headed south for the winter. I used the word "troupe" because it refers to their behavior of gathering in usually quite large flocks, or troupes. In fact, they are a part of the Troupial Family of songbirds that is made up of 91 species and only exists in the New World. For some reason, the scientific name for this family is Icteridae, from the Greek "ikteros," meaning jaundice (yellowish-green). The Rusty blackbird is anything but jaundiced in color, however. It has a glossy black plumage in spring, which turns rusty brown in fall. Its scientific name, Euphagus carolinus, which loosely translates as "well-fed Carolinian," is not nearly as descriptive of its habits as the Yupik name, Cukcugli, which means, "the one that goes chuck ... chuck," referring to a call that it makes. It is yet another of the many birds of the Lower Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta that has a name like the sound it makes --onomatapoeia, right? Curiously, the Inupiat moniker for the bird, Tulungiksyauraq, means "little raven." No mystery why it has that name, if you check the illustration. Even one of its common English names, rusty crow, claims a similar relationship to these much larger distant cousins. Cukcugli is an early migrant to Alaska and the Y-K Delta, arriving at roughly the same time as the spring peepers (wood frogs) start calling. I remember in Marshall, I used to see them for the first time between mid-April and mid-May down by Wilson Creek where they liked to nest. There was just the right combination of marshy spruce woods, alders and willows, and shallow pools along the creek to be ideal for setting up a household and having young. Especially while canoeing in the creek in late summer and early fall I would see these blackbirds and their young, stepping deliberately along the shoreline in search of sustenance, such as water bugs, larvae of caddisflies, dragonflies and mosquitoes, wayward ants, spiders and caterpillars, snails and even small fish. They don't limit themselves only to meat, however. They are omnivores and will eat other things like wildflower and tree seeds, bunchberries, cranberries and blueberries. (Have you ever noticed their blue tongues?) But I'm ahead of myself. Let's go back to spring when the blueberries are just beginning to green up and only the giant mosquitoes are quietly lumbering about the countryside. After returning from southern climes, establishing his home territory and attracting a lovely brown mate, this sleek black bird gurgles and whistles his sentinel song while she constructs a cup-shaped nest in a nearby spruce or alder. She usually builds the nest close to water out of twigs, lichens, mud and fine green grasses. She alone also incubates her 4 or 5 brown-blotched pale blue-green eggs, although her mate feeds her while she broods on the nest. Like other songbirds, Cukcugli lays one egg per day, and after the final egg is laid incubates her eggs with the help of her brood patch. This is an oval-shaped patch of bare skin on her belly which during this period develops a rich supply of blood vessels just under the skin. By pressing the brood patch against the eggs, body heat is transferred to them and their embryos begin to grow. Quickly. Only 14 days after the last egg is laid, the young hatch. Within another1 4 days the young test their new wing feathers and fly for the first time. During these two intense weeks and a couple more that follow, both parents devotedly feed and tend their young. And then after the young start feeding for themselves .....Well, this is when I saw them most, foraging by Wilson Creek. I'd stop my canoe on the placid black water and just watch them and listen to their lazy "chuck ... chuck... chuck." They'd be there every weekend . until one day when the willow leaves began to turn a serious yellow, I'd see their little troupes flying over just like I did today. "Chuck, ... chuck... chuck," they'd say, "see you next year." » List of Yupik Birds

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