The Redwing Changes Its Nesting Site' 

 Howard H. Cleaves 



One of the very commonest of our common birds is the red- 

 wing blackbird. Go to ahiiost any marsh, stream, or pond from 

 early March to the end of the nesting season and you will see 

 this black fellow with the crimson shoulder patches, perched at 

 the top of some tree and giving forth his liquid " Kon-ker-ee " 

 song. The females do not arrive from the south until several 

 weeks after the males, and if it were not for the frolicsome dashes 

 that the latter perform in making love to their brown-striped 

 mates, you might not suspect that the two birds were in any way 

 related. 



The nesting place of the redwing, as I have intimated, is near 

 water of some kind, on the edge of a pond in a tussock of grass, 

 in a shrub on the bank of a creek, or attached to grasses in a 

 marsh or swamp. But a radical change has been made in the 

 nesting habits of the redwing in a certain locality at Prince's Bay. 

 During June, 1909, while photographing bobolinks in an upland 

 meadow at that place, I came upon the nest of a redwing, which 

 contained two eggs and which was supported by a cluster of 

 daisy stems. The nest was four or five inches from the ground 

 and resembled in general the nests that are characteristic of the 

 salt meadows, although the nearest salt marsh was distant over 

 a quarter of a mile. Later in the day, in the same field, a second 

 nest was discovered, this one containing four egg>. There were 

 certainly more nests in the vicinity, for there were as many as 

 four females hovering above my head at one time. 



So it would seem that the redwing has permanently established 

 himself in this strange environment, which is so peculiarly for- 

 eign to his usual habitat. Naturally we seek an explanation, but 

 a satisfactory conclusion is not easily arrived at. One fact, how- 



' Presented liefore the Section of Biology, April 9, 1910. 



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