EASTERN REDWING 131 



Ithaca, N. Y. "The two were built in exactly similar situations, in 

 the midst of the stalks of an alfalfa plant, with the bottom in each 

 instance three inches above the ground." Witmer Stone (1937) 

 records redwings' nests in privet hedges, marsh elders (Iva fruiescens) , 

 and one in a small cedar bush, in New Jersey. A. Sidney Hyde (1939) 

 found a nest in a clump of vetch (Vicia) and another in a wild cherry 

 shrub, in northern New York. 



William Brewster (1937) says of the nesting habits of redwings at 

 Lake Umbagog, Maine: "Most of them breed on small, floating 

 islands moored not within areas permanently covered by the lake but 

 in bordering marshes which have every appearance of thus belonging 

 to it, whenever completely submerged. The islands float only at such 

 times but they keep ever level with the surface of the water, however 

 quickly it may rise or fall, yet seldom shift otherwise than vertically, 

 being too firmly anchored to solid ground beneath by tough, flexible 

 roots which proceed from living bushes — and perhaps also medium 

 sized trees — that overspread what are essentially buoyant rafts of 

 vegetable matter for the most part long since dead." 



Althea R. Sherman (1932) refers thus to tree nesting in Iowa: "It is 

 25 years since Red-winged Blackbirds began nesting in the tops of our 

 trees, which grow more than half way up the hillside from a brook 

 frequented by others of their species. Since 1907, when four females 

 built nests at heights of 18 to 22 feet from the ground in separate plum 

 trees, there has been great increase in growth of wild currant, wild 

 gooseberry and elderberry bushes in our house yard of about an acre in 

 extent. In these bushes more frequently than in the tops of plum 

 trees do the Red-wings nest." 



C. J. Maynard (1883) adds the following: " "I have found the nests 

 on an island in the marshes of Essex River, placed on trees twenty feet 

 from the ground! In one case, where the nest was placed on a slender 

 sapling fourteen feet high, that swayed with the slightest breeze, the 

 nest was constructed after the manner of our Baltimore Orioles, prettily 

 woven of the bleached sea-weed called eel-grass. So well constructed 

 was this nest, and so much at variance with the usual style, that had it 

 not been for the female sitting on it, I should have taken it for a nest of 

 I. Baltimore. It was six inches deep." 



Dr. George M. Sutton (1942) published a photograph of another 

 pensile nest, found by Malcom W. Rix in Oneida County, N. Y. It 

 was suspended "at the end of a grape-covered willow branch, about 

 three feet above water several feet deep. * * * The inside depth 

 of the nest was only slightly greater than that of the general average 

 of the species, and not comparable to that of a Baltimore Oriole's nest. 

 The color of the nest was distinctly that of a Red-wing's, although the 

 materials apparently were somewhat finer than usual." 



