A red-winged blackbird day at the Fort Edward Grasslands

I watched many female red-winged blackbirds sing, yell, and flirt with their much more colorful male counterparts at the Fort Edward Grasslands this week. Here's what I saw.

Note: all of these photos are owned and captured by me, Alexandra Fasulo.

Date captured: June 10, 2026.

Location: Fort Edward, New York.

At first, I couldn’t tell if I was looking at a female meadowlark. But upon closer examination, I realized I was watching female red-winged blackbirds (who yes, possess zero red in their feathers) make quite the ruckus at the Fort Edward Grasslands this week.

Like their male counterparts, the females love to perch above the grassland, just barely, using milkweed stalks, fences, and small shrubs.

This very vocal female was particularly keen on dead common milkweed stalks that she would land on and gently bounce up and down with the breeze as it blew over the grassland.

One of the males sat nearby, also on a dead milkweed stalk, to call back to the female who had an agitated and angry tone to her song.

I’d like to think these were two best friends or sisters, perched nearby, gossiping about the “boys” as they put on more of an aerial show to impress and entertain the females.

I have quite a few red-winged blackbirds at my homestead. I find them to be a very personable and entertaining breed of bird. They definitely have full personalities and can make me laugh from time-to-time.

The grasslands are fully growing in by this time of year, nearly a foot taller every week, swallowing dead stalks to make way for new growth. The amount of bird activity is astounding, with grassland birds popping up and down out of the grasses in every direction.

10 of the 11 top species of concern at grasslands throughout the entirety of New York State live at this grassland, as cited by our state’s own Department of Environmental Conservation.

A 100MW solar industrial complex cannot be allowed here. The Office of Renewable Energy Siting (ORES) awarded Boralex its final permit last month to build anyway. But we have other plans for stopping what would be an ecological catastrophe.

And I will continue to document this imperiled habitat, weekly, until then.

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For more of my wildlife photography and field notes, I upload the imagery to this publication Instagram as well. Check it out: https://www.instagram.com/houseofgreenmagazine.

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