Here's another preview of one of my five upcoming sets, "Blackbirds & Grackles". This image features the Rusty Blackbird and the Common Grackle. There's also some of my "Stink" beetles roaming around in the image. The Rusty Blackbird breeds north to the tree line in wet forests of Alaska, Canada, and the northeastern United States. They have declined alarmingly (85-95%) in numbers over the past 40 years (1970-2010). Potential factors promoting this decline have been identified and include loss of wetlands used by wintering individuals in the Southeast, contaminants on breeding grounds, poisoning of other blackbirds on wintering roosts (with the Rusty as an incidental victim), and increasing disturbance of boreal wetlands where this species breeds. The Common Grackle is Near Threatened for the same reasons as the blackbird as well as being a crop pest. They breed in the northern portion of North America and winter within the United States to the Mexican border. While those raggedy figures out in cornfields may be called "scare-crows", grackles are the number one threat to corn. They eat ripening corn as well as corn sprouts, and their habit of foraging in big flocks means they have a multimillion-dollar impact, hence their persecution by farmers.