Yellow-Shouldered Blackbirds: Puerto Rico Five-One Water Quality Icons

Summary: Puerto Rican yellow-shouldered blackbirds are attractive as avian assemblies in clean wetlands and Puerto Rico Five-One water quality icons August 2019.

Puerto Rico's endemic yellow-shouldered blackbird (Agelaius xanthomus) males and females are known locally as capitanes y mariquitas de Puerto Rico, respectively; Caribbean Islands National Wildlife Refuge Complex, Puerto Rico; May 15, 2015: Mike Morel, Public Domain, via USFWS Digital Library

Puerto Rican yellow-shouldered blackbirds arguably act as Puerto Rico Five-One water quality icons throughout August 2019 as they abound among the avian populations that assemble in airy wetlands and avoid adulterated watersheds.

August annually becomes natural water quality month in the United States, where the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico belongs as one of 16 Caribbean and Pacific possessions. Darren P. Soto, Democratic United States Representative for Florida's 9th district, conveyed his proposed Puerto Rico Admission Act March 28, 2019, to the current, 116th Congress. Successively favorable determinations by the 116th Congress and by the 45th president demand condition-free Puerto Rico Five-One statehood within 90 days of the latter's signed approval.

Puerto Rico Five-One statehood enters ecotourism-friendly, endemic, Puerto Rico-exclusive Puerto Rican yellow-shouldered blackbirds into thereby expanded lists of federal and state wildlife in the United States.

The months from April through August and February through November furnish Puerto Rican yellow-shouldered blackbirds with respectively annual breeding seasons on the main island and Mona.

Puerto Rican yellow-shouldered blackbird mothers-to-be as four to six monogamous couples at 49.21- to 52.49-foot (15- to 16-meter) intervals gestate one one- to four-egg seasonal brood. Main-island nest boxes, seaside cliffs and tree branches, cavities, crevices and holes and Mona's coastal cliffs hold nests honed by mothers-to-be within two to six days. Puerto Rican yellow-shouldered blackbird mothers-to-be install grass-lined, feather-, grass-, root-, seaweed-interwoven nests at 0.5- to 150-foot (0.15- to 45.72-meter) heights above box, cliff and tree bases.

Pearly-eyed thrashers (Margarops fuscatus) jeopardize six-year life expectancies of Puerto Rican yellow-shouldered blackbird eggs and hatchlings in 12- to 13-day incubators and 13- to 15-day nurseries.

Shiny cowbirds (Molothrus bonariensis) sometimes keep their black-, brown-, red-, violet-blotched and spotted, semi-glossy, smooth blue, brown, green, pink, white, yellow eggs in yellow-shouldered blackbird nests.

Yellow-shouldered blackbird hatchlings from brown-marked blue-green eggs live sociably with black-tufted, downy-gray, red-mouthed shiny cowbird hatchlings with gray-yellow bills, orange-pink skin, orange-yellow feet and orange-white-yellow gapes. The Icteridae (from Greek ίκτερος, "jaundice" and -ειδής, "-like") family and Passeriformes (from Latin passer, "sparrow" and -formis, "shaped") order juvenile member manifests white-yellow-patched brown-gray bodies. Mature Puerto Rican yellow-shouldered blackbirds, named scientifically Agelaius xanthomus (from Greek αγελαίος, "gregarious" and ξανθός, "yellow"), net black, straight bills, feet and legs and black-brown eyes.

Agelaius xanthomus xanthomus and A.x. monensis, observed by Philip Sclater (Nov. 4, 1829-June 27, 1913) and Ventura Barnes (July 14, 1910-Nov. 11, 1990), occur as subspecies.

Mature Puerto Rican yellow-shouldered blackbirds present black-blue glossy plumage, yellow-tipped lesser- and median-upperwing coverts and shoulders yellow-patched on the main island and white-yellow-patched on Mona Island.

Mature Puerto Rican yellow-shouldered blackbirds queue up lower-ranging female and upper-ranging male 1.23- to 1.45-ounce (35- to 41-gram), 7.87- to 9.84-inch (20- to 25-centimeter) beak-tail lengths. They require cactus fruits, coral (Erythrina eggersii) and ice-cream-bean (Inga edulis) tree nectars, grains, moths, nuts and seeds in mangrove, pasture, plantation and scrubland habitat niches. They sound aggressive with raspy vvvt calls, alarmed with pitch-changing cutzee calls, nasal with check and chwip calls and nhyaaaaaaaa songs and scolding with greeah calls.

Capitanes y mariquitas de Puerto Rico (Puerto Rican yellow-shouldered blackbirds), as Puerto Rico Five-One water quality icons August 2019, tell ecotourists where to treasure clean wetlands.

Puerto Rico's endemic yellow-shouldered blackbird (Agelaius xanthomus); Caribbean Islands National Wildlife Refuge Complex, Puerto Rico; May 15, 2015: Mike Morel, Public Domain, via USFWS Digital Library

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Puerto Rico's endemic yellow-shouldered blackbird (Agelaius xanthomus) males and females are known locally as capitanes y mariquitas de Puerto Rico, respectively; Caribbean Islands National Wildlife Refuge Complex, Puerto Rico; May 15, 2015: Mike Morel, Public Domain, via USFWS Digital Library @ https://digitalmedia.fws.gov/digital/collection/natdiglib/id/10798/rec/5

Puerto Rico's endemic yellow-shouldered blackbird (Agelaius xanthomus); Caribbean Islands National Wildlife Refuge Complex, Puerto Rico; May 15, 2015: Mike Morel, Public Domain, via USFWS Digital Library @ https://digitalmedia.fws.gov/digital/collection/natdiglib/id/11176/rec/3

For further information:

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