THE BOBOLINK 
By FRANK M. CHAPMAN 
The National Association of Audubon Societies 
Educational Leaflet No. 38 
Often at night, during August and September, and also, but less 
commonly, in May, we may hear the watchword of the Bobolink as high 
in the air he flies through the darkness on his journey to or from his 
winter home. It is only a simple note, repeated at intervals — tink, tink — 
but so unlike the call of any other bird that we can name its author as 
certainly as though he were singing his inimitable song. 
Let us first learn where Bobolink spends the summer, and then 
follow him on his journey to his winter quarters. Although a bird of 
eastern rather than of western North America, Bobolink appears to 
have followed man westward, as grain-fields have 
appeared on the prairies and plains. To-day, there- Range 
fore, Bobolinks are found during the summer from 
northern New Jersey northward to Nova Scotia, and westward between 
the fortieth and fiftieth parallels of latitude to the Rocky Mountains ; 
thence, in much smaller numbers, they have been recorded from Wyo- 
ming, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, and British Columbia, west, as well as 
east, of the Cascade Mountains. 
Where, now, does Bobolink winter? Not with the Red-winged 
Blackbirds in the South Atlantic and Gulf States, nor even in the West 
Indies or Central America, nor yet in northern South America, but far 
south of the Amazon, in the great campos, or prairies, of southwestern 
Brazil, and in the marshes of La Plata. From British Columbia to 
Argentina it is 6,800 miles in a line as straight as one can lay a ruler 
on the chart; but, however it may be with the Crow, “as the Bobolink 
flies” is not always the straightest line. Let us see, therefore, what 
route or routes the Bobolink follows. 
At once we make an interesting discovery. Whether a Bobolink 
spends his summer in Massachusetts or in British Columbia, he leaves 
the United States through Florida. When Bobolinks 
are found in Texas or Mexico, they are merely birds Migration 
which have lost their way. The port of departure, 
as well as of entry, is the peninsula of Florida, or, at least, the waters 
that bound it. 
But, it may well be asked, why do not the Bobolinks of the western 
United States migrate southward into Mexico, with other western birds, 
over the all-land route? 
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