Tips On Dealing With The Mighty Red Winged Blackbird

Red arrows pointing to the feathered bastards of Doom

If you've ever ridden the gravel roads in the Upper Mid West, well you know all about the little Red Winged Blackbird. They have an aggressive streak a country mile long, and are stubborn as an old mule. Often while the females are sitting on the nest or tending to little ones, the males are up on fence posts or high wires waiting to harass any would-be predators.

"Would-be predators" includes folks riding bicycles, by the way. I can not say that Red Winged Blackbirds have very good powers of discernment, they just seem ticked off 24-7. So, whether or not you mean their nestlings any harm, they are comin' after ya, and they won't quit until they feel you've 'moved on' enough that the next Red Winged Blackbird takes over, and the chain can go on for miles, actually.

Now, I will say that many times you won't even notice them, but don't be fooled! They are watching you, and you are a target. Much of the time it is about wind speed and direction, since conditions have to be just right for their attacks to be successful. However; during the dog-days of mid to late Summer, these conditions are common, and depending upon where you live, you are going to get harassed by these devils in feathered suits. Make no mistake. I believe these so-called birds are really cowardly demons of the dusty paths. Well.........not really, but ask me when I'm hot and bothered while being attacked by one of these birds and I might just have that opinion at the time!

So, after dealing with a particularly aggressive population of these rascals last Saturday, I thought about what I do to thwart them and strategies I might be able to pass along to you if these birds seem to be a bother.

Red Winged Blackbird. (Image courtesy of Wikipedia)

First off, it is best to get to know your enemy, or harasser, as the case may be. The Red Winged Blackbird has possibly the largest population and most widely spread population of any bird in North America. They typically gravitate toward marshy wetlands, but have adapted to breeding along ditches and in areas of high grasses and prairies. So, these things are pretty much everywhere. 

Next, you can learn about the Red Winged Blackbird's breeding habits and how the males are VERY protective and territorial. They have been observed harassing hawks and eagles, fearlessly dive-bombing any would-be predator for long distances until the threat has been chased away. So, you are dealing with one ornery, stubborn bird of great perseverance.

The length of the breeding season, May to August, pretty much guarantees you'll have some encounters with this bird at some point. So, what do you do? I've listed, in no particular order, some things I do when I encounter these threats to my peace of mind.

But first- There is one key thing I have learned about these birds. I always thought they were fearless, aggressive, and a bird that would take on any challenger. That's not at all true. These birds are cowards of the highest order. In fact, they only attack you from behind and will cower and fly away if you make eye contact with them. So, with that in mind.....

• If at all possible, make eye contact with the bird. This is difficult, yes. They like to hover above and behind your head. I have found that even just turning your head around as far as you can, without crashing, of course, will send the blighters packing. But if you can look your attacker in the eye, they will not dive bomb you. They will immediately pull up and often will turn tail and fly away. 
• Use their shadows to assess when they are close. I have used this technique to ascertain when to do some of the following things..... 
• - First: To wave my hand about my head. When I feel one of these birds is close, a waving motion of the hand about my head will send them off. 
• - Second: A water bottle squirt. Assuming I have copious amounts of water, or access to more, I will use the shadow on the road to assess when to assault the flying devils with a blast of water. This seems pretty effective. 
• -Third: The Dogfight Move: This is my favorite if I am alone. I simply swerve when they dive. It's fun when you get the timing down right. 
• Now on to a couple more strategies. First is speed. I have found that Red Winged Blackbirds usually won't bother with you at speeds over 16-17mph and at 20mph you'll never notice them. It takes far too much effort and time for them to draw a bead on a fast moving target. 
• Finally- You may have to stop and stand your ground. Red Winged Blackbirds can sometimes mob a would-be predator. This means several males attacking at once. I had this happen Saturday. When this occurs, the best thing you can do is stop, get off your bike, get loud and wave your arms around. This scares the birds and typically they will fly off after a few moments and you'll be able to continue. 

To close, remember that these birds can be beneficial to farmers at times since they eat a lot of pests that harm crops. (Although sometimes they eat the crops too, so....) They are pretty harmless little birds, just bothersome at times. And remember- If the winds are contrary they cannot get at you anyway. Only during a tailwind section, or on days with little to no wind will they be a big time bother.

Thinking about how these birds don't like seeing your eyes, I wonder what would happen if I painted some big ol' eyeballs on the backside of my helmet? Hmm....... Anyway- I hope this helps. What do you do when these pesky birds get frisky with you?

Tips On Dealing With The Mighty Red Winged Blackbird

Red arrows pointing to the feathered bastards of Doom

If you've ever ridden the gravel roads in the Upper Mid West, well you know all about the little Red Winged Blackbird. They have an aggressive streak a country mile long, and are stubborn as an old mule. Often while the females are sitting on the nest or tending to little ones, the males are up on fence posts or high wires waiting to harass any would-be predators.

"Would-be predators" includes folks riding bicycles, by the way. I can not say that Red Winged Blackbirds have very good powers of discernment, they just seem ticked off 24-7. So, whether or not you mean their nestlings any harm, they are comin' after ya, and they won't quit until they feel you've 'moved on' enough that the next Red Winged Blackbird takes over, and the chain can go on for miles, actually.

Now, I will say that many times you won't even notice them, but don't be fooled! They are watching you, and you are a target. Much of the time it is about wind speed and direction, since conditions have to be just right for their attacks to be successful. However; during the dog-days of mid to late Summer, these conditions are common, and depending upon where you live, you are going to get harassed by these devils in feathered suits. Make no mistake. I believe these so-called birds are really cowardly demons of the dusty paths. Well.........not really, but ask me when I'm hot and bothered while being attacked by one of these birds and I might just have that opinion at the time!

So, after dealing with a particularly aggressive population of these rascals last Saturday, I thought about what I do to thwart them and strategies I might be able to pass along to you if these birds seem to be a bother.

Red Winged Blackbird. (Image courtesy of Wikipedia)

First off, it is best to get to know your enemy, or harasser, as the case may be. The Red Winged Blackbird has possibly the largest population and most widely spread population of any bird in North America. They typically gravitate toward marshy wetlands, but have adapted to breeding along ditches and in areas of high grasses and prairies. So, these things are pretty much everywhere. 

Next, you can learn about the Red Winged Blackbird's breeding habits and how the males are VERY protective and territorial. They have been observed harassing hawks and eagles, fearlessly dive-bombing any would-be predator for long distances until the threat has been chased away. So, you are dealing with one ornery, stubborn bird of great perseverance.

The length of the breeding season, May to August, pretty much guarantees you'll have some encounters with this bird at some point. So, what do you do? I've listed, in no particular order, some things I do when I encounter these threats to my peace of mind.

But first- There is one key thing I have learned about these birds. I always thought they were fearless, aggressive, and a bird that would take on any challenger. That's not at all true. These birds are cowards of the highest order. In fact, they only attack you from behind and will cower and fly away if you make eye contact with them. So, with that in mind.....

• If at all possible, make eye contact with the bird. This is difficult, yes. They like to hover above and behind your head. I have found that even just turning your head around as far as you can, without crashing, of course, will send the blighters packing. But if you can look your attacker in the eye, they will not dive bomb you. They will immediately pull up and often will turn tail and fly away. 
• Use their shadows to assess when they are close. I have used this technique to ascertain when to do some of the following things..... 
• - First: To wave my hand about my head. When I feel one of these birds is close, a waving motion of the hand about my head will send them off. 
• - Second: A water bottle squirt. Assuming I have copious amounts of water, or access to more, I will use the shadow on the road to assess when to assault the flying devils with a blast of water. This seems pretty effective. 
• -Third: The Dogfight Move: This is my favorite if I am alone. I simply swerve when they dive. It's fun when you get the timing down right. 
• Now on to a couple more strategies. First is speed. I have found that Red Winged Blackbirds usually won't bother with you at speeds over 16-17mph and at 20mph you'll never notice them. It takes far too much effort and time for them to draw a bead on a fast moving target. 
• Finally- You may have to stop and stand your ground. Red Winged Blackbirds can sometimes mob a would-be predator. This means several males attacking at once. I had this happen Saturday. When this occurs, the best thing you can do is stop, get off your bike, get loud and wave your arms around. This scares the birds and typically they will fly off after a few moments and you'll be able to continue. 

To close, remember that these birds can be beneficial to farmers at times since they eat a lot of pests that harm crops. (Although sometimes they eat the crops too, so....) They are pretty harmless little birds, just bothersome at times. And remember- If the winds are contrary they cannot get at you anyway. Only during a tailwind section, or on days with little to no wind will they be a big time bother.

Thinking about how these birds don't like seeing your eyes, I wonder what would happen if I painted some big ol' eyeballs on the backside of my helmet? Hmm....... Anyway- I hope this helps. What do you do when these pesky birds get frisky with you?

Randomonium

NOTE: Okay folks, if you haven't been around long enough here to know what a "Randomonium" post is, then here is the deal. I ramble, rant, and randomly moan about all things cycling in one, incohesive, bizarre post. "Randomonium", okay?

The Fargo has new - old - shoes. 

 Fargo Back Up & Running:

This past weekend I got the Fargo sorted with some different tires that actually worked. The solution I found worked super easily. I forgot I had a pair of used Donnelly MSO 700 X 50mm tires. They went on the i23 Team Frequency rims with a burp from an air compressor and have been rock solid since mounted.

I tried the Schwalbe G-Ones on that wheel set that is based upon a Stan's rim dimension and, while I got them on with a plastic tire lever, they are what I would deem as being too tight. Not good if anything were to happen that required a tube to be inserted to continue going. But, that mere fact that the tire went on a Stan's dimension rim tells me it would definitely be too loose for most modern tubeless ready rims. Again- in my opinion- this is inexcusable in 2019.

My Schwalbe may have been an outlier, maybe from a bad batch? Hard to say, but for what I spent on them, I am not willing to take another shot at trying anything from Schwalbe. That brand has been struck from my "willing to buy" list. In 2019, and beyond, there will be, and are now, many, many choices in tires that will work as advertised set up tubeless easily. I know this because I get to try a LOT of tires out in my reviewing gig. If a tire takes multiple tries to get set up the first time, and then will not set up at all after one dismounting, well...... Hard pass. Nuff said.

Rendering of a Scott's Oriole

A Bird Lost? 

(NOTE: This isn't about cycling. So, it is even more random!) Sunday I walked out on the porch and I saw a flash of yellow and black. It was a bird I spooked out of the flower bed. It was so stunning and outstanding in appearance that I thought I had seen a vision. But it was real. It quickly hid in the thick cover of a tree across the street. Hmm...weird, but maybe just something I dreamed up? I still wasn't sure that I saw what I had seen. It was just so yellow and intensely colored that it didn't look real at all.

Then Monday, my wife and I walked out onto the porch and the same thing- An intensely yellow colored and black patched bird jumped out of the flower bed and quickly took cover in the same tree across the street.  Okay- this time I had a witness. I wasn't crazy. There was a weird bird and neither one of us had seen anything like it.

I did some checking online, and the closest thing I could find to what we had seen was a rendering of a Scott's Oriole. It seems to have the same pattern and intensely yellow coloring of the bird we saw. However; the range for this species is no where near Iowa. In fact, it is over a 1000 miles away from its Northernmost range to Iowa. Is this a Scott's Oriole that we had seen, or maybe something else? Is it a lost bird? Maybe.

I wish I would have gotten a picture, but as skittish as this bird was, I am lucky to have seen it twice!

Another drop bar hits the market.

The Off-Road Drop Bar Becomes Commonplace:

With over ten years of blogging here I can go back and see how things have changed over time. One of the things that's changed a ton is the amount of off-road, flared drop bars that are available.

When Trans Iowa started, and when I started riding a lot of gravel, you had about two choices for this type of bar. I used an On One Midge bar. You could get an Origin 8 Gary Bar, (the original one), and there was the odd WTB bar which had survived and were going for $150.00 a pop.

Now that gravel has become such a "thing" we have soooo many more flared drops that it is bewildering. A new one is out now from Shimano's PRO Brand which is called the Discover Big Flare Bar. It's an interesting handle bar that has some cool features- the 30° flare, the nice sweep- and some straight up roadie drop bar parts, like the weird radius to the drop and the shorter extensions. It's an unique bar in that it has such odd bits paired together.

I've yet to use it on gravel, but I'm sure it has its good and bad features there as well. The funny thing is, every bar has to be different, or it is a copy, and that won't do now, will it? No. So we get these weird things put out there at times that, well........they just do not work. And that's the thing with these flared drops. Not all of them really work, and so you get just a few that become the "standards" of the industry. Bars like Salsa Cycles' Cowchipper and Cowbell, which have spawned more than a few near-ripoffs. Or the previously mentioned On One Midge Bar, which spawned an almost perfect knock-off bar by another company, and inspired a few other bar designs. 

Once in a great while you get the super-weird bar and it works, for some reason. The Woodchipper and Luxy Bar come to mind here. But those are certainly acquired tastes, and it is easy to see why those bars are so polarizing.

Anyway, what a long way we have come! I never would have guessed that in 2019 there would be so many choices for off-road and flared drop bars as there is now. I'm still amazed by it all.

Randomonium

NOTE: Okay folks, if you haven't been around long enough here to know what a "Randomonium" post is, then here is the deal. I ramble, rant, and randomly moan about all things cycling in one, incohesive, bizarre post. "Randomonium", okay?

The Fargo has new - old - shoes. 

 Fargo Back Up & Running:

This past weekend I got the Fargo sorted with some different tires that actually worked. The solution I found worked super easily. I forgot I had a pair of used Donnelly MSO 700 X 50mm tires. They went on the i23 Team Frequency rims with a burp from an air compressor and have been rock solid since mounted.

I tried the Schwalbe G-Ones on that wheel set that is based upon a Stan's rim dimension and, while I got them on with a plastic tire lever, they are what I would deem as being too tight. Not good if anything were to happen that required a tube to be inserted to continue going. But, that mere fact that the tire went on a Stan's dimension rim tells me it would definitely be too loose for most modern tubeless ready rims. Again- in my opinion- this is inexcusable in 2019.

My Schwalbe may have been an outlier, maybe from a bad batch? Hard to say, but for what I spent on them, I am not willing to take another shot at trying anything from Schwalbe. That brand has been struck from my "willing to buy" list. In 2019, and beyond, there will be, and are now, many, many choices in tires that will work as advertised set up tubeless easily. I know this because I get to try a LOT of tires out in my reviewing gig. If a tire takes multiple tries to get set up the first time, and then will not set up at all after one dismounting, well...... Hard pass. Nuff said.

Rendering of a Scott's Oriole

A Bird Lost? 

(NOTE: This isn't about cycling. So, it is even more random!) Sunday I walked out on the porch and I saw a flash of yellow and black. It was a bird I spooked out of the flower bed. It was so stunning and outstanding in appearance that I thought I had seen a vision. But it was real. It quickly hid in the thick cover of a tree across the street. Hmm...weird, but maybe just something I dreamed up? I still wasn't sure that I saw what I had seen. It was just so yellow and intensely colored that it didn't look real at all.

Then Monday, my wife and I walked out onto the porch and the same thing- An intensely yellow colored and black patched bird jumped out of the flower bed and quickly took cover in the same tree across the street.  Okay- this time I had a witness. I wasn't crazy. There was a weird bird and neither one of us had seen anything like it.

I did some checking online, and the closest thing I could find to what we had seen was a rendering of a Scott's Oriole. It seems to have the same pattern and intensely yellow coloring of the bird we saw. However; the range for this species is no where near Iowa. In fact, it is over a 1000 miles away from its Northernmost range to Iowa. Is this a Scott's Oriole that we had seen, or maybe something else? Is it a lost bird? Maybe.

I wish I would have gotten a picture, but as skittish as this bird was, I am lucky to have seen it twice!

Another drop bar hits the market.

The Off-Road Drop Bar Becomes Commonplace:

With over ten years of blogging here I can go back and see how things have changed over time. One of the things that's changed a ton is the amount of off-road, flared drop bars that are available.

When Trans Iowa started, and when I started riding a lot of gravel, you had about two choices for this type of bar. I used an On One Midge bar. You could get an Origin 8 Gary Bar, (the original one), and there was the odd WTB bar which had survived and were going for $150.00 a pop.

Now that gravel has become such a "thing" we have soooo many more flared drops that it is bewildering. A new one is out now from Shimano's PRO Brand which is called the Discover Big Flare Bar. It's an interesting handle bar that has some cool features- the 30° flare, the nice sweep- and some straight up roadie drop bar parts, like the weird radius to the drop and the shorter extensions. It's an unique bar in that it has such odd bits paired together.

I've yet to use it on gravel, but I'm sure it has its good and bad features there as well. The funny thing is, every bar has to be different, or it is a copy, and that won't do now, will it? No. So we get these weird things put out there at times that, well........they just do not work. And that's the thing with these flared drops. Not all of them really work, and so you get just a few that become the "standards" of the industry. Bars like Salsa Cycles' Cowchipper and Cowbell, which have spawned more than a few near-ripoffs. Or the previously mentioned On One Midge Bar, which spawned an almost perfect knock-off bar by another company, and inspired a few other bar designs. 

Once in a great while you get the super-weird bar and it works, for some reason. The Woodchipper and Luxy Bar come to mind here. But those are certainly acquired tastes, and it is easy to see why those bars are so polarizing.

Anyway, what a long way we have come! I never would have guessed that in 2019 there would be so many choices for off-road and flared drop bars as there is now. I'm still amazed by it all.

Country Views '17: Notes Of Spring

The dun colors of Winter's passing are being slowly replaced with notes of Spring's green.

The weather finally decided to be drier than not, which hasn't been the case of late. The Gent's Race day was good, then it went all wet for days since then. I took advantage by getting out and seeing some country. Spring has brought bright green grass and plants are poking their heads up around town. But I wanted to see what was happening out in the open spaces.

I went South, but had I actually checked the weather, I would have gone North first. The wind was out of that direction and it was getting stronger all the while I was out. Oh well. I survived. I'll get used to riding in the wind again, I am sure of that much. Iowa is considered a Great Plains state after all.

So a sure sign of Spring here in Iowa is when you start to notice road maintenance happening. It isn't hard to tell where the maintainers and dump trucks of gravel have been either. one minute you are cruising along on smooth, fast dirt with little gravel, then the next minute you are slogging it out on three inches of jagged marbles. Such is the transition from Winter road conditions to Summer road conditions. In Spring, that mix can be jarring. Literally and figuratively.

Winter conditions still exist on this stretch of road. 

Here you can see where two layers of fresh gravel have been added. 

So, I ran into a solid two mile stretch of that deep, fresh gravel and it was tough sledding. My 37mm tires were getting a workout, and it was hard to keep the bike straight, much less going forward. It is times like these when I wish I was riding a Fargo with 2.1"ers or one of my fat bikes. Then you come off of that to smooth as glass dirt and the bike takes off like you had an anchor cut away from the back end.

The only green is in the ditches and it still has a ways to go before it covers last year's growth.

So, besides the gravel, the only other signs of Spring's arrival were the green grass in the ditch and the return of several song birds. The grass hasn't overcome last year's dead growth, but with this wet, cooler pattern we are in, it won't take long for that grass to get taller. Add a bit of Sun, which we haven't seen for days on end, and it will accelerate the growth even more.

The song birds were really vociferous yesterday. I heard all sorts of piping and tweeting all along my route. My favorite songs are those of the Red Wing Blackbirds, when they are happy, and the Western Meadowlark. The Meadowlark was a bird I heard a lot as a kid when I stayed with my Grandpa and Grandma in Northern Iowa on their farm, so it brings back good memories. Many people don't like Red Wing Blackbirds, but I like their sassy attitude and they just don't bother me when I ride. They haven't quite taken up nesting and territorial protection duties yet. So, they are not doing the dive bombing and hovering over your head thing just yet, but that will come soon enough.

So too will the flowers and my favorite part of riding out in the country. For now the sweet note of song birds singing will have to suffice. More soon......

Country Views '17: Notes Of Spring

The dun colors of Winter's passing are being slowly replaced with notes of Spring's green.

The weather finally decided to be drier than not, which hasn't been the case of late. The Gent's Race day was good, then it went all wet for days since then. I took advantage by getting out and seeing some country. Spring has brought bright green grass and plants are poking their heads up around town. But I wanted to see what was happening out in the open spaces.

I went South, but had I actually checked the weather, I would have gone North first. The wind was out of that direction and it was getting stronger all the while I was out. Oh well. I survived. I'll get used to riding in the wind again, I am sure of that much. Iowa is considered a Great Plains state after all.

So a sure sign of Spring here in Iowa is when you start to notice road maintenance happening. It isn't hard to tell where the maintainers and dump trucks of gravel have been either. one minute you are cruising along on smooth, fast dirt with little gravel, then the next minute you are slogging it out on three inches of jagged marbles. Such is the transition from Winter road conditions to Summer road conditions. In Spring, that mix can be jarring. Literally and figuratively.

Winter conditions still exist on this stretch of road. 

Here you can see where two layers of fresh gravel have been added. 

So, I ran into a solid two mile stretch of that deep, fresh gravel and it was tough sledding. My 37mm tires were getting a workout, and it was hard to keep the bike straight, much less going forward. It is times like these when I wish I was riding a Fargo with 2.1"ers or one of my fat bikes. Then you come off of that to smooth as glass dirt and the bike takes off like you had an anchor cut away from the back end.

The only green is in the ditches and it still has a ways to go before it covers last year's growth.

So, besides the gravel, the only other signs of Spring's arrival were the green grass in the ditch and the return of several song birds. The grass hasn't overcome last year's dead growth, but with this wet, cooler pattern we are in, it won't take long for that grass to get taller. Add a bit of Sun, which we haven't seen for days on end, and it will accelerate the growth even more.

The song birds were really vociferous yesterday. I heard all sorts of piping and tweeting all along my route. My favorite songs are those of the Red Wing Blackbirds, when they are happy, and the Western Meadowlark. The Meadowlark was a bird I heard a lot as a kid when I stayed with my Grandpa and Grandma in Northern Iowa on their farm, so it brings back good memories. Many people don't like Red Wing Blackbirds, but I like their sassy attitude and they just don't bother me when I ride. They haven't quite taken up nesting and territorial protection duties yet. So, they are not doing the dive bombing and hovering over your head thing just yet, but that will come soon enough.

So too will the flowers and my favorite part of riding out in the country. For now the sweet note of song birds singing will have to suffice. More soon......