164 PASSERES : Perching Birds 



ICTERID^E (Family Blackbirds, Orioles, etc.): Medium-sized 

 perching birds; all black or various combinations of color, 

 mostly black, with red or yellow; bills stout or slender, sharply 

 pointed. All have musical calls or songs. 



SAN DIEGO RED-WING 



(498e. Agelaius phoeniceus neutralis) 8 in. 



Male: Black; scarlet shoulder-patch, buffy-edged below. In 

 winter, feathers of upper parts have rusty tips. 



Female: Smaller. Above, a streaky mixture of dusky, rusty, 

 and gray; whitish and dusky-streaked below; throat and broad 

 stripe over eye, dull white. 



Immature males: Black, rusty-edged everywhere except tail. 

 A great destroyer of insects in spring, and a scourge later 

 when, in great flocks, they raid fields of small grain. 



SONORA RED-WING 



(498a. Agelaius phoeniceus sonoriensis) 9 in. 



Male like the San Diego, except slightly larger. 



Female, much lighter, with extensive buffy on upper parts 

 and less definite streaking below; throat unmarked. 



TRICOLORED RED-WING 



(500. Agelaius tricolor) 8 in. 



Male: Silky black; shoulder-patches dark red, with white border 

 below. In winter, upper parts more or less rusty-tipped. 



Female: Dusky; gray-streaked about head and under parts; 

 wings barred and more or less edged with gray. 



Song more guttural and "croaky" than that of the San Diego 

 Red-wing, yet much less so than the Yellow-head's. 



A clean-cut bird, handsomest of all the Blackbirds. 



