MEADOWLARKS AND BLACKBIRDS: Family Icteridae [511] 



(Bailey) Nest: Neatly woven basket of marsh grass, tules, and similar vegetation, 

 fastened to tule stems over the water. Eggs: 3 to 5, grayish to greenish white, 

 heavily and evenly spotted and blotched with brown. 



DISTRIBUTION. General: Breeds from British Columbia, southern Mackenzie, central 

 Manitoba, and northern Minnesota south to Mexico and east to Wisconsin and 

 Indiana. Winters south into Mexico. In Oregon: Common breeding species of 

 Lake district of south-central Oregon (Klamath, Lake, and Harney Counties), less 

 abundant in Blue Mountain area, and only irregular visitor west of Cascades. 



THE EARLIEST MENTION of the Yellow-headed Blackbird (Plate 88, 5) in 

 Oregon was Newberry's (1857) report of it as an abundant breeding 

 species about Klamath Lake; and all of the other earlier ornithologists 

 who worked that territory, including Bendire (1877), Mearns (1879), an d 

 Merrill (1888), had something to say about it. It is most at home in 

 the tule beds of the alkaline lakes of Klamath, Lake, and Harney Coun- 

 ties, where it is an abundant breeding species, conspicuous both because 

 of its color and its queer love song. It arrives there in April and remains 

 normally until late September (earliest date, April i; latest, November 

 2.0, both Harney County). It has been found less commonly in Malheur 

 (2. specimens in Biological Survey Collection from Ontario by Kalmbach), 

 Union, Baker, Crook, Umatilla, and Deschutes Counties in eastern Ore- 

 gon. In all of these counties our records are April, May, and June dates, 

 many of which are probably for migrating birds, although Braly took 

 four sets of eggs at Davis Lake in Deschutes County, June 7, 1931. 



Prill (1895 a) reported this blackbird as a rare winter bird at Sweet 

 Home. In this or any other western Oregon locality, it cannot be re- 

 garded as a winter resident but only as a straggler. We have noted several 

 individuals near Portland and took specimens while together on May 18, 

 1918. In addition to these, there are several sight records by others from 

 the Columbia bottoms in the same general territory, and Overton Dowell, 

 Jr., took an adult male in Curry County on June 2.4. 



The nests are invariably built over the water, usually a foot or two 

 above the surface. They are neatly woven baskets of available heavy 

 grass, tules, or rushes and contain three to five eggs each. Egg dates for 

 numerous nests vary in our notes from May 16 to June 17, although 

 earlier dates could probably be noted by someone who lived on the ground. 



Before the young birds are able to fly, many of them leave the nests 

 to clamber about in the tules until their wings become strong enough to 

 carry them. During this period they are fair game for hawks, turtles, 

 and the larger fish that get them from perches close to the water. Numbers 

 of them are also drowned when they fall into the water in places from 

 which they are unable to clamber back onto the tules. 



After the breeding season the Yellow-heads join the rapidly growing 

 mixed flocks of blackbirds that roam the country in the vicinity of the 

 nesting marshes and sometimes cause heavy losses to the ripening grain. 



