Wasatch Front · Icterids

Icterids, gloss & swagger

Seven icterids own the valley's marshes, meadows, and cottonwoods in spring — from the Red-winged Blackbird on nearly a third of April checklists to the Great-tailed Grackle strutting the parking lots. The males mostly name themselves. The group's real trap is the everyday glossy-black bird — Brewer's, grackle, or cowbird — and its evil twin, the big streaky brown female that gets called a sparrow. This key leads with the black-bird decoder and is honest about where the females quit.

01

Four builds, on sight

Before species, bucket by color scheme and where the bird is working — it narrows to a pair fast.

Black + a bright badgeRed-winged · Yellow-headed

Glossy-black males with a loud patch — a red-and-yellow shoulder, or a whole yellow head. Clinging to cattails and marsh reeds, singing. The females are big, brown, and streaky (see §05).

Plain glossy blackBrewer's · Great-tailed · cowbird

Black, no bright patch — the hard group. Lawns, lots, feedlots, town. Sort them on eye color and tail, not gloss alone (§03). The long keeled V-tail here is a Great-tailed's swagger.

Chunky, streaked, yellow-breastedWestern Meadowlark

The odd one out. Squat and short-tailed, cryptic brown-streaked back, a lemon-yellow breast with a black V, long spike bill, white outer tail flashing in flight. A ground bird of open grass and sage — flute-y song.

Slim, bright, arborealBullock's Oriole

Trim and long-tailed, fine sharp bill. Male flame-orange with a black cap, throat-stripe, and big white wing patch; female yellow-olive. High in cottonwoods and shade trees, weaving a hanging pouch nest.

The trap, stated up front: the call that fools everyone is the plain glossy-black bird — and the females are worse. On a black bird, read eye color and tail first (§03), not the sheen. On a big streaky brown one, know that a distant female often can't be taken past "blackbird sp." — and that's a real, correct log (§06).
02

Walk it down

Tap through to a name — or to an honest "sp."

No-JS fallback — the tap-through version loads when scripts run.

1
Black male with a bright patch, in the marsh → Red-winged / Yellow-headed. Red-and-yellow shoulder = Red-winged; whole yellow head & breast = Yellow-headed. The big streaky brown "sparrow" beside them is the female.
2
Plain glossy black, no bright patch → Brewer's / Great-tailed / cowbird. Pale eye + short flat tail + purple-headed = Brewer's; pale eye + big + long keeled V-tail = Great-tailed Grackle; dark eye + brown head + stubby bill + small = Brown-headed Cowbird. A bronze-backed one is the rare Common Grackle (§06).
3
Chunky, brown-streaked, yellow breast with a black V, white outer tail, open grass → Western Meadowlark. A "meadowlark" seen but not heard leans on voice — Eastern is off the county list (§06).
4
Slim, sharp-billed, in the treetops → Bullock's Oriole. Orange-and-black with a white wing patch (♂) or yellow-olive with two thin wingbars (♀/imm). Any other oriole here is rare — §06.
5
Distant or backlit brown, streaky female / juvenile — can't resolve it → "blackbird sp." A real, correct log — see §06.
03

Reading a glossy-black icterid

The group's signature knot. Two clean axes — eye color and tail — do most of it; gloss and bill confirm.

Eye color

The cleanest mark on a male. A pale, staring, whitish-yellow eye means Brewer's or a grackle. A dark eye on a small, brown-headed bird with a stubby bill is a cowbird. Catch: a female Brewer's has a dark eye too — so sex the bird first, or lean on tail and bill.

Tail — length & keel

The size-free axis. Great-tailed's tail is enormous — often longer than the body — and males fold it into a deep keeled V. Brewer's is short and flat. A medium keeled tail on a smaller grackle points to the rare Common Grackle (§06). Cowbird's tail is short and plain like Brewer's — separate it by size and bill.

Size, bill & sheen — confirm

Backup once eye & tail lean. Cowbird: sparrow-small, thick conical finch bill, glossy black body with a brown hood (♂). Brewer's: medium, thin pointed bill, purple head-gloss over a green-glossed body. Great-tailed: big, long heavy bill, an overall purple-violet sheen.

Take two axes that agree. Pale eye + long keeled V-tail is a lock on Great-tailed; dark eye + brown head + stub bill locks the cowbird. A distant, silent bird whose eye and tail you can't resolve — especially a dull female — is honestly "blackbird sp.," a real category on this county's checklists (§06). Don't force gloss color; light shifts it.
04

The players

Common → uncommon. Amber box = the clinching mark. Tap a name for eBird (photos, songs).

Red-winged Blackbird

Agelaius phoeniceus

Black + patch
ClincherMale: glossy black with a red shoulder patch bordered yellow. Female: a big, heavily streaked brown "sparrow" with a long spike bill and a pale eyebrow — not a sparrow (§05).
Red epaulet (♂)Streaked ♀Cattails

The valley's default marsh voice — "conk-la-ree" from every cattail stand, spilling into wet fields and feedlots. The commonest icterid here by a wide margin.

Common · 30.4% at peak (Apr)

Bullock's Oriole

Icterus bullockii

Oriole
ClincherMale: flame-orange face & underparts, black crown, eyeline and throat-stripe, black back, and a big white wing patch. Female/imm: yellow-orange head fading to greyish belly, two thin wingbars (§05).
White wing patch (♂)Hanging nestCottonwoods

Our breeding oriole — high in cottonwoods and shade trees, weaving a hanging pouch. Arrives late April–May; a dry chattering song. Any other oriole here is rare (§06).

Fairly common · 19.5% at peak (May)

Brown-headed Cowbird

Molothrus ater

Glossy black
ClincherThe odd glossy-black one: small, a thick conical finch-like bill, a dark eye, and — on the male — a brown hood over a black body. Female plain grey-brown, faintly streaked.
Brown head (♂)Dark eyeStub bill

A brood parasite — lays in others' nests. Feeds on lawns and under feeders, often walking with tail cocked; liquid gurgle then a thin whistle. The dark eye and stub bill separate it from Brewer's (§03).

Fairly common · 16.5% at peak (May)

Yellow-headed Blackbird

Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus

Black + patch
ClincherMale: black body, a brilliant yellow head & breast, and a white wing flash in flight. Female: dusky brown with a yellow face, throat, and breast wash — the yellow gives her away (§05).
Yellow hood (♂)White wing flashDeep marsh

Bigger, deeper-marsh cousin of Red-winged — colonies in tall bulrush over open water. The song is a famously awful rusty-hinge grind. Flocks into farm fields on migration.

Fairly common · 14.0% at peak (Apr)

Western Meadowlark

Sturnella neglecta

Meadowlark
ClincherChunky and short-tailed: cryptic brown-streaked above, a lemon-yellow breast crossed by a black V, and white outer tail feathers that flash when it flushes. Long spike bill.
Yellow breast + black VWhite outer tailGrassland

A ground bird of open grass, sage, and field edges — walks, doesn't hop. The rich, flute-y, gurgling song is the clincher. Eastern Meadowlark is a near-impossible sight call and isn't on the county list (§06).

Fairly common · 12.1% at peak (Apr)

Brewer's Blackbird

Euphagus cyanocephalus

Glossy black
ClincherMedium, slim, short flat tail; male has a pale staring eye and a purple head-gloss over a green-glossed body, thin pointed bill. Female plain grey-brown with a dark eye.
Pale eye (♂)Short flat tailPurple head

The town-and-lot blackbird — struts parking lots, campgrounds, and stock yards. The default plain-black bird; sort it from cowbird by the pale eye and thin bill, from grackles by the short flat tail (§03).

Fairly common · 10.5% at peak (Apr)

Great-tailed Grackle

Quiscalus mexicanus

Glossy black
ClincherBig and long-billed, a bright yellow eye, and an enormous keeled tail the male folds into a deep V. Purple-violet sheen. Females much smaller, browner, but same long tail.
Long keeled V-tailYellow eyeStruts town

A recent, booming colonist of valley towns — parking lots, canals, city parks, loud with clacks and whistles. Any big long-tailed grackle here is this; a smaller bronze-backed one is the rare Common (§05/§06).

Uncommon · 6.7% at peak (Apr)
05

The ones that fool you

The big streaky female, the two grackles, and a dull oriole.

The female / juvenile streaky knot — "what IS that brown thing"

The group's real quit-point. Female Red-winged is the classic miss: big, heavily streaked below on buff, a long pointed bill and a pale eyebrow — people call it a sparrow or a weird thrush. It isn't; the size and bill are wrong for a sparrow. Female/juv Brewer's and cowbird are plain grey-brown with a dark eye — the cowbird stubbier-billed and smaller, faintly streaked below; Brewer's longer and thinner-billed, cleaner. Female Yellow-headed is dark with an obvious yellow face, throat, and breast. Juvenile grackles and Red-wings are browner, less glossy versions of the adults. When a bird is distant or backlit and none of that resolves, the honest log is "blackbird sp." (§06).

Great-tailed vs Common Grackle

Great-tailed is the default here: big, a very long keeled V-tail, a flat crown, a bright yellow eye, and a fairly uniform purple-violet sheen. Common Grackle is noticeably smaller with a shorter (still keeled) tail, and the gloss is the tell — a bronze-brown back contrasting a blue-purple head, not the even sheen of a Great-tailed. Common is rare here (see §06) — read size, tail length, and that bronze back before you call it, and don't upgrade a Great-tailed on a hunch.

Bullock's Oriole — male vs female / immature

Male is unmistakable: flame-orange face and underparts, a black crown, eyeline, and narrow throat-stripe, black back, and a bold white wing patch. Female / immature is the miss — yellow-orange head and breast fading to a greyish-white belly, olive-grey back, and two thin whitish wingbars. Don't demote a dull female oriole into a warbler or a tanager: the size, the long thin slightly-curved bill, and the oriole structure give it away. A very small, dull oriole in fall could be a rarity (§06), so look twice.

06

Don't overcall these

The honesty ceiling, the rare-vs-default calls, the review birds, and two ghosts.

The "sp." ceiling — a real, correct answer

Both are logged categories on this county's own checklists — reaching them is honest, not lazy.

  • "Blackbird sp." is legitimate. A distant or backlit female / juvenile icterid — a plain or streaky brown bird whose bill shape, eye color, and tail you can't resolve — is fairly logged blackbird sp. This is the group's peep/empid quit-point: the females and young converge, and a bad-light bird simply may not be nameable.
  • "Icterid sp." and "grackle sp." exist too. A silhouetted flock overhead, or a grackle you can't take to Great-tailed vs Common, can honestly stay at "sp." These categories appear in the county's eBird bar-chart data because birders here hit that ceiling routinely — use them instead of guessing.

The rare-vs-default calls

Where the odds, not the field marks, do the work — and where a name leans on voice.

  • Common Grackle is the outlier, not a coin-flip. At ~0.8% (June) it's genuinely rare here — and, notably, not a UBRC review species, just scarce. Great-tailed is the overwhelming default. A "grackle" in Salt Lake County is a Great-tailed until the smaller size, shorter tail, and bronze-backed / blue-headed gloss say otherwise (§05). Don't upgrade a Great-tailed to Common on a hunch — but a well-seen bronze-backed bird is worth logging carefully.
  • Western vs Eastern Meadowlark is a voice call. The two are a near-impossible sight ID — plumage overlaps and the reliable split is song (Western's rich flute-y gurgle vs Eastern's clear slurred whistle). And it barely matters here: Eastern Meadowlark is on neither the 2020 county checklist nor the eBird county histogram — a genuine records-committee bird if claimed. (The 2022 split also carved "Lilian's"/desert birds off as Chihuahuan Meadowlark; a true Eastern in the valley would be extraordinary.) Both sources agree it's essentially absent — stated, not smoothed.
  • Bobolink is a rare, local migrant. ~0.3% (May), reported and not review. The breeding male is unmistakable — black below, buffy nape, white back, like a tuxedo worn backwards. But fall birds and females are buffy and streaky, an easy "sparrow / bunting sp." trap — don't force one, and note the wet-meadow habitat.

Recorded, but review species — a Merlin ID isn't proof

On the 2020 UBRC Salt Lake County list but flagged for documentation. Photograph and report to records@utahbirds.org.

  • Rusty Blackbird review — a scarce fall/winter bird (~0.3%, Dec). The trap is a fall Rusty vs Brewer's: fresh-plumage Rusty shows warm rusty feather-edging on head and back, a pale eye, and favors wet woods and flooded edges over parking lots. Get the rusty edging and the habitat on camera before logging.
  • Orchard Oriole review — a rare spring/summer stray (~0.1%, May). The adult male is brick-chestnut, not orange, and smaller than Bullock's; females are a greener yellow. A "small dull oriole" deserves photos.
  • Baltimore Oriole review — a rare eastern vagrant (~0.6%, Oct). Male is flaming orange with a solid black hood (vs Bullock's black cap + orange face). It hybridizes with Bullock's, and the county data records both Bullock's × Baltimore and the "Bullock's/Baltimore" slash — so a fall oriole with mixed head pattern deserves care, not a snap call.

On the review radar, but unrecorded in both sources

Review species that are not reported on the 2020 county list and absent from the eBird county histogram — the two sources agree these haven't occurred here.

  • Bronzed Cowbird review · unrecorded — a southwestern species; if one ever appears, the tells are a red eye and a ruffed neck. Both sources list it as not-yet-recorded in the county — treat any candidate as a records-committee bird.
  • Streak-backed Oriole review · unrecorded — a Mexican vagrant, off the county list and off the histogram. A deep-orange oriole with a streaked back would be extraordinary here; document everything.

Scarce, but genuinely recorded

Reported and not review — just rare in the histogram. Rare is not the same as review.

  • Hooded Oriole (~0.6%, May) and Scott's Oriole (~0.02%, Apr) are both on the county list and non-review, though thin in the eBird data — a reminder that a low histogram bar doesn't automatically mean "get documentation." Hooded is a slim, decurved-billed oriole of palms and yuccas; Scott's is a black-and-lemon bird of pinyon-juniper and Joshua-tree country, both scarcer and more southern than Bullock's.