Red-Winged Blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus)

County List:

Rule:

Forested or Nonforested Landscapes

1st alternative:
      Small Grains/Forage Crops
      or Fields/Pasture
      or Marsh 2
      or Sedge Meadow
      or Lowland Brush

2nd alternative:
      (Any Open Water)
   adjacent to:
      (Marsh 2 or Lowland Brush)

Habitat List:

view size class definitions

Literature:

Habitat: Red-winged Blackbirds breed in a variety of habitats, choosing both fresh and saltwater marshes, swamps, wet meadows, stream sides, dry fields, and pastures. They nest in urban areas where proper habitats exists. The Atlas Habitat Survey shows Michigan individuals have a similar breadth of habitat selection. It appears to be one of the few species with territories which allow it to nest along roadsides and in the medians of highways.

Individuals often nest in loose colonies, although single nests are not uncommon. Nests are placed near the ground or as high as 4.3 m above it in various types of vegetation including trees, bushes, grasses, and cattails. The nest is typically constructed from leaves, rootlets, and other vegetation anchored to the supporting structure with fiber, and lined with fine grasses. Food includes both seeds and insects.

During migration this species often forms very large flocks which feed in agricultural fields.

It reaches its highest concentrations in the southern part of the state where it is heavily associated with hayfields for nesting habitat and grainfields for forage.

Habitat: Breeding: Marshes, swamps, wet meadows, ponds, dry fields. Prefers wetlands with extensive growth of cattails, bulrushes, sedges, and reeds.

Special Habitat Requirements: Sites for night roosting close to food supply.

Habitat: Breeds in marshes, brushy swamps, hayfields; forages also in cultivated land and along edges of water. Breeds most commonly in freshwater marsh, but also in wooded or brushy swamps, rank weedy fields, hayfields, upper edges of salt marsh. Often forages in other open habitats, such as fields and mudflats; outside the breeding season, flocks gather in farm fields, pastures, feedlots.

Diet: Mostly insects and seeds. Feeds on many insects, especially in summer, including beetles, caterpillars, and grasshoppers; also spiders, millipedes, and snails. Majority of adult's annual diet (roughly three-fourths) is seeds, including those of grasses, weeds, and waste grain. Also eats some berries and small fruits.

Nest: Placed in marsh growth such as cattails or bulrushes, in bushes or saplings close to water, or in dense grass in fields. Nest is bulky open cup lashed to standing vegetation, made of grass, reeds, leaves, rootlets, lined with fine grass.