The Red Winged Blackbird

Read more about the red-winged blackbird.

       One of the signs of spring for which we watch is the return of our summer birds. They come to us from their winter sojourn in lands to the south that offer more abundant food than the blizzard-swept Chicago prairies and marsh lands. With longer days and warmer weather, the birds come back for as long a time as the climate is hospitable and the countryside lavish of its larder. One of the first arrivals, early in March, sometimes even during the later days of February, is the Red Winged Blackbird.
       These blackbirds do not arrive in one grand entrance parade. They come in three installments, sometimes as much as two weeks elapsing between the various groups. The flocks often contain from thirty to three hundred birds. First come the older males. Each bird decides upon a likely spot for its future home, generally in a cattail swamp‚ and it stakes claim. Noisy squabbles often result when some late arrival tries to overlap an earlier bird's property. Later come the females and last of all the young males.
       During the courting season the brilliantly colored males make the marsh lands ring with their clear calls. Only rarely do the Red Winged Blackbirds return to the same mate each year. Occasionally two or three females will mate with the same male.
       A Red Winged Blackbird's nest is remarkable in construction, in inaccessibility and desirability of site. It is carefully woven of the finest sedges and rushes and is skillfully fastened to weeds about three feet above the surface of the marsh water. Here the nest is safe from enemies on land, and it is even difficult to reach from the water. During the hot summer days the nest is shaded from the burning sun by tall weeds. The clutch, from three to five eggs‚ is laid in late April or May.
       The eggs hatch in from ten to fourteen days, and the ugly little fledglings begin to make life busy for their parents. When the parents visit the nest, the featherless youngsters open their huge mouths and clamor for food. The parents make many trips during the day, carrying insects such as larvae of gypsy moths, tent caterpillars, weevils, and grasshoppers, in an attempt to satisfy the ravishing appetites.
       The natural food of the Red Winged Blackbird is about three-fourths weed seeds and one-fourth insects. These birds have been condemned as a nuisance because they also eat freshly planted seeds and young corn, but they really benefit the farmer by eating large numbers of grasshoppers and weevils that would destroy his crops.
       As the chill nights and cool days of autumn kill off the host of insects in the fields and over the swamps, the food supply of the Red Wings becomes scarce. The birds move on to more hospitable regions where there is abundant insect life upon which they can feed. In the fall, blackbirds flock together in large groups. Later, hundreds of these birds in one large mass start on their southward migration. They spend the winter in the southern part of the United States, although a few birds may remain in southern Illinois.
       If you should be out near a marsh or a swampy meadow this spring, watch for the Red Wings. You will have no difficulty in identifying these robin-sized birds. The males are glossy black, with bright scarlet, gold-edged patches on the shoulders. The brown female looks very much like an oversized sparrow and is quite inconspicuous among the cattails and reeds. But its bill is very different from the thick, heavy bill of a sparrow. The blackbird has a fairly long bill, well adapted for securing its insect food and quite unlike the seed-crushing bill of a sparrow. Pabst.

Glen Loyd's nature videos: Listen to the red-winged blackbird.