plantladylin said: And, the Red-winged Blackbirds ... we see many of them pretty much year-round but the females are very scarce, same for the Brown-headed Cowbirds which we only see here in the fall and winter months ... many males and very few females. It's puzzling. 
One thing about the R-w Blackbirds is they will form flocks of the separate genders outside breeding season. When winter is waning down, we will see flocks, but it is one gender or the other. Their feeding methods are different, the males feed on the ground and the females up in trees or tall weeds.
Not often will we find the cowbirds in large flocks, just the Grackles, Red-wingeds and if we look closely, we'll see Rusty Blackbirds. We get the cowbirds in the breeding months.
The males I could live with. They are hilarious as they try to pose and show off for the females.
We actually backtracked for a Cardinal today. We do not see those things perched on wires and the tail seemed too long, so we thought we'd get a Tanager... nope it was a Cardinal. Ah, well.
We bought a new feeder today. The last hopper was impossible to clean thoroughly, so we got one of those nice recycled plastic ones from Wild Birds Unlimited. It will outlive us.
