120 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 211 



selves in fields and meadows, along the roadsides, often in barnyards 

 and corrals, and sometimes in city streets, flocks with pompous, 

 yellow-caped males strutting about among the dull-colored females 

 and young, talking in harsh, gutteral tones." 



At this season the handsome adult males are often seen in flocks 

 by themselves, and the females and young in larger separate flocks. 



P. A. Taverner (1934) writes: 



The days are spent on the bountiful stubble fields, and the nights in the marshes. 

 A blackbird roost just before sunset is an interesting place indeed. The birds 

 come in from every direction, talking and croaking loudly, in vast black clouds, 

 looking, on the horizon, like wisps of smoke blowing before the wind. They 

 pitch into a bed of reeds already occupied by earlier arrivals, until each stalk 

 seems strung with big, black beads. At the onslaught of the incoming contingent, 

 birds are dislodged right and left, there is a babel of protesting voices and a 

 fluttering of many wings that whirr loudly in the still air as the surface of the green 

 marsh boils with black forms seeking new resting places. The confusion gradually 

 subsides until the next arriving flock starts the hubbub over again. 



Thus it goes on as the sun sinks, until all are in, and then the evening wind 

 chases waves over the soft green surface of the reed beds, without revealing a 

 hint of the hordes of black bodies beneath that are resting through the stillness 

 of the night. 



Winter. — The yellow-headed blackbirds, having withdrawn from 

 the northern portions of their breeding range, spend the winter in the 

 southern United States and northern Mexico. They are still to be 

 found, however, in some of the extreme southern parts of their summer 

 range in more or less reduced numbers. In their winter range, they 

 roam about over the fields and plains in enormous mixed flocks, 

 visiting the ranches, barnyards, and poultry farms, much as they did 

 in the fall. 



DISTRIBUTION 



Range. — Western Canada to central Mexico. 



Breeding range. — The yellow-headed blackbird breeds from cen- 

 tral Washington (Yakima Valley, Bumping River), central British 

 Columbia (Vernon, Cranbrook, Tachick Lake), central-western and 

 northeastern Alberta (Clairmont, Fort McMurray), north-central 

 Saskatchewan, central and southeastern Manitoba (Grand Rapids, 

 Winnipeg), northern Minnesota, north-central Wisconsin, north- 

 eastern Illinois, and northwestern Ohio (locally) ; south to southern 

 California (Potholes, San Jacinto Lake), southwestern Arizona (near 

 Yuma, Imperial Dam), northeastern Baja California (Colorado River 

 Delta), south-central Nevada (Paliranagat Valley), southwestern 

 Utah (formerly Virgin River Valley), central and central-eastern 

 Arizona (Mormon Lake, Marsh Lake), southern New Mexico (Mesilla, 

 Carlsbad), northern Texas, Northwestern Oklahoma (Cimarron 

 County), and northeastern Missouri (Sarcoxie, Clark County), cen- 



