What is this bird?

[Rosann Flynn]

I saw this little bird with red shoulders at Lilly Lake in Colorado. It looks like a sparrow or finch but I can't seem to make an exact ID. 

[LorraineCO]

It's an immature male Red-winged Blackbird

[Nighthawk01]

43 minutes ago, LorraineCO said:

It's an immature male Red-winged Blackbird

Agreed.

[xpoetmarcr]

With my limited knowledge I would have said a female adult.  What distinguishes this from the female?

[Rosann Flynn]

Thanks for the info. 

[psweet]

This bird's still in juvenile plumage (all of the feather edges are nice and crisp, with very little sign of wear -- adults at the start of their fall plumage should be quite worn, and I don't see any molting which would indicate that it hasn't started it's first pre-basic molt either). At this point, telling male from female requires measurements. The orange on the lesser wing coverts actually doesn't tell us anything --all their plumages show some orange there when fresh.

[LorraineCO]

On 7/16/2018 at 8:38 AM, psweet said:

This bird's still in juvenile plumage (all of the feather edges are nice and crisp, with very little sign of wear -- adults at the start of their fall plumage should be quite worn, and I don't see any molting which would indicate that it hasn't started it's first pre-basic molt either). At this point, telling male from female requires measurements. The orange on the lesser wing coverts actually doesn't tell us anything --all their plumages show some orange there when fresh.

Thanks. I've never seen a female with orange, so assumed it was a young male.