A New Departure for the Redwing 
By HOWARD H. CLEAVES, Staten Island, N. Y. 
With photographs by the author 
M \HE Red-winged Blackbird is gen- 
erally associated with wet, marshy 
places. His three-syllable note, or 
song, we expect to hear from the tree-tops 
on the border of some cat-tail swamp, 
along some creek, or at the edge of a 
pond. 
The nest is easily located, bemmg placed 
sometimes in a tussock of grass near the 
"margin of the water, or out in an open 
"stretch of marsh-land in. the short grasses. 
as sewer More often it is suspended from the 
ID AMAMEIS) IIH: BILANCHS IBID) upright stems of the highwater-shrubs or 
HOVERING 
the tall marsh grasses. The two latter 
nests differ from the others. They are woven on the outside with plant fibers, and 
fastened to their supports in a manner which makes them resemble, in a degree, 
the nest of the Baltimore Oriole. Generally they are placed several feet from 
the ground. The former nests are invariably placed very close to the ground, or 
water, being only a few inches up the stems of the grasses to which they are 
attached, and in no wise do they resemble a pendent nest. They are constructed . 
throughout of grasses of various sizes. 
But the Redwing is changing the nest-building customs of his race. He is 
completely shifting the scenes of his domestic life. That is, he is doing so in a 
certain section of Staten Island. 
Last summer, while photographing Bobolinks, I had occasion to do a great 
deal of walking back and forth through a daisy field, in search of nests. Red- 
winged Blackbirds seemed numerous about the place, and would first alight on the 
tree-tops at the edge of a wood, and then fly excitedly out over the field and hover 
just above my head. I must have been too much absorbed in my Bobolinks at — 
first to take note of the Redwings, for not until a female of the latter species had 
actually been flushed from her nest did it occur to me that these birds might do 
such an unheard-of thing as to build in an upland hay-field, within a few rods 
of the nests of the Bobolink and Meadowlark. But here was unquestionable 
proof. Father Redwing sat in a tree-top, scolding; the mother hovered excitedly 
over my head; and just in front of me, supported by a cluster of daisy stems, was 
the nest. The set of eggs was incomplete, but the eggs were unmistakable. The 
nest-site had changed, but the eggs were scrawled with the same short-hand mark- 
ings that adorn all Redwings’ eggs. The nest was of the type found in the short 
salt-meadow grass, and was only four inches from the ground. 
(60) 
GS 
TT ROIS SIE 
