WISCONSIN BIRD-STUDY BULLETIN. 23 



EED-WINGED BLACKBIRD. 



Abundant summer- resident. A few remain all winter; length nine 

 and one-half inches; female quite unlike the male; nest deep and 

 coarse made of ynarsh grasses, weed stalks and the like, lined with fine 

 grasses and root fibers; placed among bushes or cat-tails in swampy 

 places; eggs three to five; song a musical chuck-a-lee-dle. 



Eed-winged black bird, so fully- describes this beautiful fellow that 

 one needs only to see him to know him. 



Perhaps red-shouldered 'would have been a better name for only a 

 small part of the wing is red, nor is the wing-patch 'wholly red ; its 

 hind margin is more buft' or yellow than red. 



If you wish to make his acquaintance, go to the low grounds in 

 spring or summer while the nest is being made or tended. You do 

 not have to hunt him there, he announces himself. How nervonis and 

 excited he becomes! He is so afraid that you will discover his nest 

 near by; and yet he tells you all about it! He can not understand 

 that you are not an amphibian and must keep to the dry ground 

 If you only had a pair of rubber boots, he would probably show the 

 way to the nest in his anxiety to keep you from it. How he cackles 

 and chatters and clicks! Now see the red on the wing! Could any- 

 thing be brighter or prettier than he as he sways on the stalk of -'x 

 last year 's cat- tail or balances himself on a spray of willow ! 



You would not take his mate to be any relation to him, they aie 

 so unlike — she is a dull^ brownish-black bird. Her head and back are 

 a dirty black streaked with rusty brown. The breast is covered with 

 short, narrow streaks of black and white. Usually her shoulder h&s 

 no scarlet epaulet though sometimes it has a reddish tinge. 



The farmer again finds a friend in these birds for injurious insects 

 and seeds make up more than three-fourths of their food. 



In the summer and early fall they g:ather in large flocks and forage 

 over the grain and com fields. Now the farmer thinks they are doing 

 him an injury^ and no doubt they are, especially when the flocks are 

 very large; but he should not forget their valuable service through 

 the months of spring and early summer when they were eating cut- 

 worms, army-worms, locusts and grasshoppers. Had it not been for 

 these birds, he would not have as much grain to divide with them. 



