1920 J Kennard, Breeding Habits of Rusty Blackbird. 417 



northern borders late in April or early in May, about the time the 

 ice goes out of the lakes and often before the snow is melted in 

 the surrounding woods and swamps. Here they spread out 

 through their accustomed haunts, along the shores of the secluded 

 lakes and ponds, among the swamps, or along the brooks and 

 streams, showing a particular fondness for the "dry-kye" or 

 dead-wood among the back-waters. To these places they return 

 season after season. Though gregarious throughout most of the 

 year, I have never found more than one pair in a given area dur- 

 ing their nesting season. There may be colonies of Bronzed 

 Grackles and Red-wings breeding close by, but never more than 

 one pair of Rusties. The nearest I have ever found them being 

 a quarter of a mile apart. 



C. J. Maynard in his 'Birds of Eastern North America' writes 

 of some "perfectly inaccessible" "sloughs" in the Magdalen Is- 

 lands, as follows : " I had observed Blackbirds about there on sev- 

 eral occasions, but as they kept well in the centre of the large 

 tracks, I could not make out at first what they were, but after a 

 time found a large colony of Rusty Grackles were evidently build- 

 ing in one of the above described places." As Mr. Maynard 

 seems to have been doubtful as to the identity of the birds in the 

 first place, and later confesses that "all efforts to penetrate this 

 fastness proved unavailing" this evidence as to these birds some- 

 times breeding in colonies seems hardly conclusive. 



In northern Vermont and New Hampshire where the migration 

 up the Connecticut valley seems to bring them early to their 

 breeding grounds, they start their nest building early in May, 

 while in eastern Maine, only a trifle farther north, they usually 

 do not start until the middle of the month. 



For sites they seem more apt to choose evergreens, preferably 

 thick clumps of second growth spruce and balsam, though I have 

 found them in dead trees or in clumps of deciduous bushes, button- 

 bush and sweet gale, along the shores of some stream. Audubon 

 writes of finding "their nest among the tall reeds of the Cats- 

 tail or Typha." Samuels tells of nests along the Magalloway 

 river in Maine, built in low alders overhanging the water, and 

 Chapman records their having built upon the ground, though I 

 can find no further record of their so doing. 



