The red-winged blackbird is no retiring songbird.
(Illustration by Michael White)
Whether you're a beginning birder, or no birder at all, the male red-winged blackbird is pleasingly easy to spot. Glossy black in body, the male sports bright red “epaulets” edged with yellow on its wings.
They’re a common bird with a year-round range that covers the entire U.S., and while they’re not strictly a migratory bird, in winter, they may gather in enormous flocks of up to millions of birds in the southeastern U.S., often in company with other species including blackbirds, grackles, and starlings. But you’ll also see them in Virginia, even in the dead of winter, when they’re more likely to visit backyard feeders (sunflower seeds are a favorite).
“Red-winged blackbirds are the best!” says Laura Schoenle with true scientific objectivity. Now assistant director in the office of undergraduate biology at Cornell University, she completed her Ph.D. at Virginia Tech, where her thesis focused on red-winged blackbirds.
It’s the breeding and nesting season, Schoenle says, when the male really struts his stuff. When flocking with his fellow blackbirds, he keeps his shoulders discreetly under feathery wraps, but once he sets up territory, in late winter or early spring, it’s time for the show.
Prime real estate for a red-winged blackbird is a marshy area with cattails over water. The location, says Schoenle, “probably offers some predation deterrence, but also it is a highly desirable food area with lots of bugs and dragonflies.”
Like a handsome bachelor with a primo condo, that territory gives the male status with the ladies, but his calling card is those flashy wings, which he uses both to attract mates and warn off competitors. He’ll establish a turf, and thereafter spend a great deal of time perched above it, singing and displaying his crimson-splashed wings. The males also have “a little dance” they will perform for females, says Schoenle. “They puff up their epaulets and do this side-to-side wiggle, really showing off their size and brightness.”
When they aren’t singing and dancing, Schoenle says, the males are also aggressive in defending that territory. “They fend off other males, and you’ll see them chasing crows or ravens and sometimes even herons.” They aren’t afraid to take aim at any people who stray too close either. “If you are near their nests, they won’t shy from bonking you on the head,” says Schoenle, who apparently learned that lesson firsthand while doing research on them.
Females, on the other hand, look and act nothing like the males. They are a streaky buff color, sometimes with faint hints of red on the wings, and while he’s up above singing and flashing his wings and chasing off the competition, she’s keeping hidden within the cover of plant life below.
First there’s nest-building, then the hatching and feeding of the young. The birds weave a nest up to seven inches deep from materials such as cattails, marsh grasses, and willow leaves, then line it with a layer of mud and finally one of finer grass—an impressive work of construction considering they only have a beak and bird feet to work with. The preferred location is close to the ground and well camouflaged among the marsh plants.
Red-winged blackbirds are polygynous, and a mature male might have as many as 15 females nesting in his territory—although research has demonstrated that despite males’ territorial vigilance, the neighboring fellow may sometimes be the father of a brood within another male’s domain.
Nor is that the only trouble in paradise. There is always the threat of predators, of course, and additionally, red-winged blackbirds are one of a number of bird species targeted by the brood-parasiting brown-headed cowbird, which lays its eggs in other birds’ nests, and foists the job of raising its offspring onto the unwitting foster parents.
According to recent research, yellow warblers—which share the same marshy territory with red-winged blackbirds and also are targeted by the cowbird—have developed a distinct alarm call to warn of intruding cowbirds. Even more impressive, the red-winged blackbirds surveyed in the study have learned to recognize that alert themselves.
With summer upon us now, it’s a great time to visit a wetlands park yourself, to see if you can spy one of these colorful performers doing his thing—with a flash of color and a song to sing.
This article originally appeared in the June 2022 issue.
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