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Redwinged blackbirds have become feeder birds. There are five of them on the platform of the feeder outside my window now, all males. There are 11 more on the ground around and under the feeder, also all males. Redwings occupy my feeder much of the day now. Blue jays and grackles bully their way in among the redwings and cowbirds slip in between but the little birds that came to the feeder through the winter, the chickadees and tufted titmice, nuthatches and house finches and downy woodpeckers, are forced to dart in, snatch a few seeds, and fly back to the nearby bushes and trees.
Redwings weren’t feeder birds when I was in grade school, not when I first made and put out a bird feeder. It wasn’t many years ago that I was surprised to see a redwing at my bird feeder. Now I see many at my feeder.
Redwings weren’t birds of the fields when I was a boy either. I didn’t see male redwings perched on fence posts by pastures as I do now in spring and summer, nor on tall weeds in hay fields or on power lines along country roads except when the road led past a marsh. Redwings used to be birds of cattails, of marshes and shallow lakes, during their time of nesting. When nesting was over they gathered in flocks and drifted about the countryside until their time to go south for the winter.
Red-winged blackbirds at my bird feeder are evidence of their adaptability. Other birds that visit feeders are the same. All feeder birds have learned to recognize the take handouts. But redwinds have also learned to use a different nesting habitat. Some of them still build their nests in cattails but many now build nests in grasslands.
Ninety years ago a Carnell University ornithologist, Dr. Arthur A. Allen, predicted the possibility of redwings nesting in grasslands. They’re not adapted to the marsh, Dr. Allen wrote. They may once have been birds of uplands and may nest there again some day.
Other birds have shown the same adaptability, robins nesting in shade trees in lawns and parks and on fire escapes and ledges of buildings, purple martins and house wrens and chickadees in bird houses, barn swallows nesting in barns and other buildings. But those habitats are more limited than grassy fields and as a result no other birds have been more successful than redwings. They are now among the most common birds of North America, some people say the most common.
Curiously, almost all the redwings coming to my feeder now are males. Further, most of them are less than a year old, birds of last year’s broods. They have brown feather edgings on the black and the red and yellow of their shoulder patches isn’t very bright. They look a bit dull, unkept, scruffy.
These young males are more evidence of adaptability of the species. They’re not establishing territories as the older males are. They’re not puffing out their red epaulettes, singing, trying to attract mates. Most of them won’t mate this year. But if something happens to an older male or if a new territory becomes available, they’re there, they’re ready. They could, and some of them would, fill out or increase the number of reproducing redwings if conditions permit. Meanwhile they’re waiting and those visiting bird feeders are devouring many pounds of bird seed.
As for the young females, they’re not waiting. They’re moving into the territories of older males. They’ll mate, build nests, lay eggs, incubate and raise young while each male with a territory, each lord of the manor, perches conspicuously, puffs out his feathers and announces continuously to his several mates how great he is.
NEIL CASE is a retired naturalist with the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. He lives near Albion.
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