BREWER'S BLACKBIRD 319 



blackbird "are beneficial, being more insectivorous than vegetarian in 

 food habits. However, being gregarious birds, they can now and then 

 inflict such great damage on crops that to give them full protection is 

 not fair to the farmer whose crops are immediately threatened." 



The species as I have observed it in northern Monterey County, 

 Calif., forages in a wide variety of open or grass covered situations. 

 Parent birds have been seen gathering food for nestlings on the beach 

 where the receding tide has left bits of kelp ; the birds have been seen 

 feeding on the dry parts of the beach above high tide mark, on wet 

 sand bars at the mouth of the Carmel River, on mud flats near the 

 river mouth, and on the grassy areas ofrthe adjacent marsh where they 

 mingle with pintails (Anas acuta), shovellers (Spatula clypeata), 

 Wilson's snipe (Capella gallinago), killdeer (Charadrius vociferus), 

 and other shore birds. They feed in both green and dry pastures and 

 grasslands (where they may or may not feed near cattle), on recently 

 burnt-over grass areas, along the bare shoulders of highways in open 

 country, on freshly plowed fields, on lawns and golf courses, on side- 

 walks, and in the gutters of streets of towns. 



I have never seen them foraging in dense brushland or forested areas, 

 although the flocks fly over such areas. During the nesting season, at 

 least, some foraging is done among the needles of the pines in the 

 colony. For example, four times in three seasons I have seen birds 

 poking into the insect spittle in the pines. One bird was seen carrying 

 insects with spittle to nestlings. Dr. Kathleen C. Doering, of the 

 Department of Entomology of the University of Kansas, identified 

 specimens collected from similar spittle masses in the same tree as 

 Aphrophora. 



I have also seen flycatching tactics on numerous occasions when the 

 birds took short flights from the ground to capture a flying insect. 

 Such sallies are also made from telephone wires. 



Grinnell, Dixon, and Linsdale (1930) mention the distance from its 

 nest the bird will forage to feed nestlings. Parent birds gathered food 

 from the ground on a chaparral-covered slope half a mile away from 

 their nest on the edge of a lake. At the river-mouth colony parents 

 range some distance for food. The maximum recorded was on May 17, 

 1944, when birds went to a feeding tray just half a mile away to get 

 food for nestlings 4 and 5 days old and for fledglings out of the nest. 



The species seems capable of shifting quickly from one foraging 

 situation to another, e. g., the instance mentioned by Beal (1948) of a 

 flock leaving cherries to follow the plow. This trait has been com- 

 mented on by Winton Wedemeyer (MS.) and others. The bird is 

 commonly observed following various tillage operations. R. M. 

 Bond (MS.) reports that in 1939, 1940, and 1941 Brewer's blackbirds 

 "followed the cultivating equipment near Somis, Ventura County, 



