Red-winged Blackbird

I saw this Red-winged Blackbird who "stopped to smell the flowers" earlier in the month. Or did it? Although birds do have olfactory glands to be able to smell, they're not well developed in most birds including our passerine friend here. Similarly, these birds have extremely few taste buds. For most birds, smell and taste presumably aren't a big part of their lives.

There are exceptions. We know our Turkey Vultures have quite good senses of smell which they use to find dead animals. And there are questions. It's believed that birds learn to avoid eating Monarch butterflies after tasting them, which doesn't sound compatible with a weak sense of taste.

So what's this bird doing? I'm assuming it's about seeds and insects; birds know that pollinated flowers tend to produce seeds, and that the flowers attract both insects that eat the plants and that pollinate the flowers. Stopping to check out the flower could scare up a meal.

May 15, 2022 at Duke Farms
Photo 199463520, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)


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