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Red-Winged Blackbird
The red-winged blackbird is a true rival of the robin as a sign that Spring
is close at hand. However, since lowlands where there are marshy areas are
less often visited by people, this bird's early presence is less conspicuous
than that of the robin, who is a visitor to our yards.
The red-winged blackbird's cheery call, variously described as: "Kon-co-lee",
"Kon-ga-ree", "Okalie", and others, may usually be interpreted as announcing
the establishment of territorial rights. It is the male who gives this
familiar call from some vantage point in the midst of the area he has
selected for his family. His arrival from a winter in a sunny southland is
usually several days to several weeks before the arrival of the females.
The nest may be built in a variety of situations in the marshland area, but
a favorite place is among the dense cattails. Several of these are lashed
together by intertwining dead cattail leaves or similar material which are
relatively soft and fibrous. The nest is bulky and deeply hollowed. Finer
grasses and rootlets line the interior.
There are three to five eggs laid. These are pale blue, streaked with black
or purple. The female alone incubates the eggs, which takes ten to fourteen
days. Often there are two broods in a season. The young are voracious eaters
with large appetites for insects of many kinds, which the parents glean from
as far away as a half mile. In their winter habitat, the food includes weed
seeds and grain, particularly rice. These and other blackbirds are noted for
their gregarious nature in the fall and winter, but what damage they may do
in grain fields is small payment for the good done during the remainder of
the year by their consumption of countless millions of insects.
Relatives of the red-winged blackbirds are the bobolink, meadowlarks,
cowbirds, orioles, grackles, and other blackbirds. Make friends with the
blackbirds these spring days.
The "Red-Wings" (Agelaius phoeniceus) are more widely
distributed in North America, and are more handsome than the other
blackbirds. Their breeding colonies range from Central America almost to
the Arctic Circle, where there are thickets along streams and cattails or
the tules in the swamps, including the saw-grass of the Everglades and the
prairie sloughs of South Dakota. Often they share the areas with yellow
headed blackbirds.
In Utah, the first red-wings return in March or early April, along with the
first song sparrows and robins. The mature males come in flocks, often three
weeks ahead of the females, and stake out their territories. "The red-wing
flutes his O-KA-LEE", as Emerson describes their sweet song, to announce his
domain. The males are easy to identify, with their glossy black plumage and
the bright red "epaulets" with a yellow margin. The females and young are
brownish, with well defined black stripings below, and have the sharp pointed
bill and the blackbird appearance.
The females, on arrival, scatter quickly over the marshes, keeping out of
sight among the sedges and cattails. Each decides on her nesting ground and
drives off other females as they intrude. Last to arrive are the first year
males, dusky brown and showing signs of red on their shoulders. They are
shunned by the females and chased away by the old males.
The nest, usually built in May by the female, is a basket of rushes lined
with fine grasses and lashed to the cattails or other marsh vegetation. The
eggs, 3 to 5, are bluish green and spotted with brown and purple. The
incubation period is about twelve days. The male red-wing may have several
mates, and does not help with the incubation. He guards his territory, and
attacks crows and hawks when they come near. The young, naked and blind on
hatching, are ready to leave the nest only ten days later. There are two
and sometimes three broods in a season. Because of many enemies -- mink,
weasels, foxes, hawks, crows, and water snakes -- half the fledglings may
not survive.
In July, when the young of the second brood are able to fly with their
parents, all collect in flocks and wander about the country in search of
food, foraging in the uplands by day and returning to roost in the marshes
at night. After the August molt, the red-wings emerge from the wetlands to
roam the open country again. As cold weather approaches, the flocks of the
northern states and southern Canada move southward by the thousands,
performing wonderful maneuvers on the wing.
Blackbirds do not have many friends among the farmers, and several studies
have been made of their feeding habits. One of the best was by Edward E.
Forbush, the well known ornithologist of Massachusetts, who reported:
"They forage about the fields and meadows when they first come north in the
spring. Later they follow the plow, picking up grubs, worms, and caterpillars;
and should there be an outbreak of cankerworms in the orchard, the blackbirds
will fly at least half a mile to get cankerworms for their young. Wilson
estimated that the redwings of the United States would in four months destroy
sixteen thousand to a hundred million larvae.
"They eat the caterpillars of the gypsy moth, the forest tent caterpillar,
and other hairy larvae. They are among the most destructive birds to weevils,
click beetles, and wire worms. Grasshoppers, ants, bugs, and flies form a
portion of the red-wing's food. They eat comparatively little grain in
Massachusetts, although they get some from newly sown fields in spring, as
well as from the autumn harvest; but they feed largely on the seeds of weeds
and wild rice in the fall. In the South they join with the bobolink in
devastating the rice fields, and in the West they are often so numerous as
to destroy the grain in the fields; but here the good they do far outweighs
the injury, and for this reason they are protected by law."
-- by Marie L. Atkinson
REFERENCES:
Field Guide to Western Birds -- Roger Tory Peterson
Handbook of Nature Study -- Anna B. Comstock
Red-Winged Blackbird -- T. Gilbert Pearson
National Geographic -- Robert W. Storer
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