[52.4] BIRDS OF OREGON 



NEVADA RED-WINGS winter along the rivers and smaller streams of eastern 

 Oregon in small flocks but become much more abundant in late February 

 as the migrants return. They migrate in sex flocks. The old males arrive 

 first, their glistening black uniforms and scarlet epaulettes standing out 

 in startling contrast to the drab landscape. Later the females and younger 

 birds return, and the flocks gradually break up as each male selects a 

 territory and commences to sing his love song and to indulge in aerial 

 evolutions and strutting display of his brilliant wing patches. One or 

 more females may eventually fall for his charms and consent to build a nest 

 and raise a family in the particular patch of swamp that he claims. Some 

 especially favored gallant may have several wives, for polygamy is prac- 

 ticed to some extent by these interesting birds. 



Three counties, Klamath, Lake, and Harney, contain most of the breed- 

 ing population of Red-wings in eastern Oregon, where the birds are 

 present in the large swamps in uncounted thousands, and where in the 

 fall the gathering swarms look like black clouds on the horizon. In the 

 remainder of eastern Oregon, the Red-wings are more common than the 

 Yellow-heads. Every little swamp provides a nesting place for one or 

 more pairs, and many are found along the willow-grown stream beds. 

 Bendire (Brewer 1875) & rst recorded this species from Camp Harney. 

 Mearns (1879) and Merrill (1888) listed it from Fort Klamath. Since 

 that time little has been written about the bird in that particular area, 

 although every observer who has made a general list has included it. 



The nests are built in a variety of places, but the swamps seem to be 

 the first love of the Red-wing. There the nests, shallower and more 

 heavily walled than those of the Yellow-head, are woven about the up- 

 right stems of the tules. Along streams the birds frequently build in the 

 willows or bushes that overhang or are close to the water, and occa- 

 sionally the nests are placed in the tufts of grass on small hummocks in 

 the bogs. Nests with eggs have been found from May 2. to June 2.0, with 

 the height of the egg-laying season about June i. Following the breeding 

 season the birds gather into huge mixed flocks that through July, August, 

 and September swarm over the grain fields and pasture lands adjacent 

 to the breeding grounds. These flocks gradually decrease in size in late 

 September and early October, as the birds drift southward, until usually 

 only small wintering groups of males remain. 



Northwestern Red-wing: 



Agelaius fhoeniceus caurinus Ridgway 



DESCRIPTION. Very similar to A. p. nevadensis. "Male: length (skins) 8.60-9.10, 

 wing 4.57-5.10, tail 3-39~3-83, bill .90-1.01. Female: length (skins) 6.807.80, 

 wing 3. 85-4. 2.x, tail 2.. 80-3.2.7, bill .77-. 86." (Bailey) Nest and eggs: Same as for 

 Nevada Red-wing. 



