The birds of spring are filling Wyoming skies with all manner of song. Jackson photographer Timothy Mayo recently took this striking image of a yellow-headed blackbird belting out its hoarse call. The temperature and light were just right for him to capture the vapors of its breath. 

It was a crisp dawn in the reedy wetland on the National Elk Refuge, he told WyoFile, and he was able to snap the bird’s misty breath because it was in the first sunlight, “but the background was not.” 

Yellow-headed blackbirds join a plethora of avian creatures in the state this time of year. Mayo has too many springtime favorites to list, but said he enjoys everything from cedar waxwings to goslings, swans and western meadowlarks.  

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Katie Klingsporn

Katie Klingsporn is WyoFile's managing editor. She is a journalist and word geek who has been writing about life in the West for 15 years. Her pieces have appeared in Adventure Journal, National Geographic...

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