The Red-Winged Blackbird (Ageiams phoenicens) 



By Henry W. Henshaw 



Length, about 9^ inches. 



Range : Breeds in Mexico and North America south to the Barren Grounds ; 

 winters in southern half of United States and south to Costa Rica. 



Habits and economic status : The prairies of the upper Mississippi Valley, 

 with their numerous sloughs and ponds, furnish ideal nesting places for redwings, 

 and consequently this region has become the great breeding ground for the 

 species. These prairies pour forth the vast flocks that play havoc with grain fields. 

 East of the Appalachian Range, marshes on the shores of lakes, rivers, and estu- 

 aries are the only available breeding sites, and, as these are comparatively few and 

 small, the species is much less abundant than in the West. Redwings are eminent- 

 ly gregarious, living in flocks and breeding in communities. The food of the 

 redwing consists of 27 per cent animal matter and 73 per cent vegetable. Insects 

 constitute practically one-fourth of the food. Beetles (largely weevils, a most 

 harmful group) amount to 10 per cent. Grasshoppers are eaten in every month 

 and amount to about 5 per cent. Caterpillars (among them the injurious army 

 worm) are eaten at all seasons and aggregate 6 per cent. Ants, wasps, bugs, 

 flies, dragonflies and spiders also are eaten. The vegetable food consists of 

 seeds, including grain, of which oats is the favorite, and some small fruits. When 

 in large flocks this bird is capable of doing great harm. 



Abundant summer resident. A few remain all winter. Nest deep and 

 coarse, made of marsh grasses, weed stalks and the like, lined with fine grasses 

 and root fibers ; placed among bushes or cat-tails in swampy places ; eggs three 

 to five ; song, a musical chuck-a-lee-dle. 



Red-winged blackbird so fully describes this beautiful fellow that one needs 

 only to see him to know him. 



Perhaps red-shouldered would have been a better name for only a small 

 part of the wing is red, nor is the wing-patch wholly red ; its hind margin is more 

 bufif or yellow than red. 



If you wish to make his acquaintance, go to the low grounds in spring or 

 summer while the nest is being made or tended. You do not have to hunt him 

 there, he announces himself. How nervous and excited he becomes ! He is so 

 afraid that you will discover his nest near by ; and yet he tells you all about it ! 

 He can not understand that you are not an amphibian and must keep to the dry 

 ground. If you only had a pair of rubber boots, he would probably show the 

 way to the nest in his anxiety to keep you from it. How he cackles and chatters 

 and clicks ! Now see the red on the wing ! Could anything be brighter or prettier 

 than he as he sways on the stalk of a last year's cat-tail or balances himself on a 

 spray of willow! 



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