The Red-winged Blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus) is a familiar sight across North America, easily identified by the male's bright red shoulder patches, or epaulettes. These birds are not rare, but they certainly are beautiful. Their scientific name is Agelaius phoeniceus, which comes from a Greek origin. “Agelaios” means “flocking” in Greek, indicating these birds flock together in large groups, while “phoeniceus” comes from the Greek word “phoinikeos,” due to the fact that ancient Phoenicians brought to Greece crimson dyes that they made using shellfish. The latter part of their scientific name describes their colorful wing patches. Red-winged blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus) are widespread throughout North America and are among the most abundant and commonly studied birds of North America. This species commonly forages in or near aquatic habitats, including wetlands and marshes. The red-wing is also seen in prairie, pasture, and cropland ecosystems. They are one of our most abundant and widespread species throughout Maryland and most of the continent and can be found in all of the lower 48 states, parts of Alaska, and parts of Canada, Mexico, Cuba, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, and Costa Rica.
Dietary Overview
Red-winged blackbirds are omnivorous; they vary their diet when opportunities arise. However, their diet consists mainly of seeds and grains, like corn and rice, as well as small berries. Insects and seeds make up the majority of the red-winged blackbird's diet. The specific composition of their diet varies depending on the season and available resources.
Seasonal Variations in Diet
The diet of the Red-winged Blackbird changes with the seasons, reflecting the availability of different food sources.
Breeding Season (Summer) Diet
During the breeding season, Red-winged Blackbirds eat mostly insects, including dragonflies, damselflies, beetles, butterflies and moths. Red-winged blackbirds eat more insects than plant matter during the summer or breeding season. Summer foraging includes beetles, grasshoppers, caterpillars, butterflies, moths, dragonflies, and spiders. They will also eat a variety of insects and arachnids during the breeding season to increase their caloric intake and meet their dietary needs, allowing them to be in peak reproductive form. If needed they can also eat various other small invertebrates and carrion as well.
Winter Diet
Throughout winter, these birds eat mainly seeds and grains. A red-winged blackbird's winter diet consists mainly of seeds and grains. Insects are harder to come by in the colder months, so plant matter high in fats helps these birds survive the winter. They generally feed on plant matter high in fats, including waste grain, sunflower seeds, grasses, and the seeds of weeds such as cocklebur and ragweed. They also occasionally eat fruits and berries.
Read also: Diet of *Turdus merula*
Foraging Behavior
Red-winged blackbirds are primarily ground foragers. When not involved in other activities, such as mating or nest building, these birds are usually eating or searching for food.
Gaping Technique
Red-winged Blackbirds often use a feeding technique known as gaping. Red-winged blackbirds find food through a process known as gaping, where the bird sticks its closed bill into the ground or amongst dense vegetation and then forcibly opens it. This tactic exposes insects hiding in soil or under plant matter. Red-winged Blackbirds use a process called gaping, where they put their bills into the ground to forage food.
Other Foraging Methods
Red-winged blackbirds also pick seeds up off the ground and forage insects directly from vegetation. Sometimes they feed by probing at the bases of aquatic plants with their slender bills, prying them open to get at insects hidden inside.
Feeding Habits
Red-winged blackbirds are diurnal, meaning they are active throughout the day. These birds forage frequently during the daylight hours.
Social Foraging
During winter, the red-winged blackbird often feeds in large flocks consisting of other blackbirds and starlings. Whereas, during the breeding season, the birds often only associate with their mates. Outside the breeding season, usually forages in flocks, often associated with other blackbirds and starlings.
Read also: The Hoxsey Diet
Diet of Young Red-winged Blackbirds
Baby red-winged blackbirds are primarily fed insects. Both parents generally take part in feeding their young, providing mainly aquatic insects, including damselflies, for morning meals and terrestrial insects throughout the latter part of the day. A female red-winged blackbird collecting insects for chicks.
Food Sources in Detail
A closer look at the specific food items consumed by Red-winged Blackbirds:
Seeds and Grains
Red-winged blackbirds eat a variety of seeds, including black oil sunflower, hulled sunflower, cocklebur, ragweed, grasses, and tree seeds. In fall and winter they eat weedy seeds such as ragweed and cocklebur as well as native sunflowers and waste grains.
Insects and Invertebrates
Insects such as spiders, grasshoppers, beetles, and caterpillars are important to the red-winged blackbird's diet. Mosquitoes are also a part of their diet, as they generally nest in wetland and marsh habitats.
Other Food Items
They also occasionally eat fruits and berries. If needed they can also eat various other small invertebrates and carrion as well.
Read also: Walnut Keto Guide
Providing Food for Red-winged Blackbirds
Red-winged blackbirds will eat black oil sunflower seeds, cracked corn, millet, peanut hearts, and oats. Red-winged Blackbirds will visit backyard bird feeders, especially when food is limited in the winter months. Because they are ground foragers, you can spread these items out in your yard for the birds to eat. Seed mixes that include peanut hearts are an excellent way to attract red-winged blackbirds to your yard.
Attracting Red-winged Blackbirds
Red-winged blackbirds are attracted to a variety of mixed seeds, including hulled sunflower, black oil sunflower, cracked corn, peanut hearts, and millet. They are more comfortable feeding on the ground but will visit feeders. If you would like to provide a feeder for your blackbird neighbors, try an open-platform or hopper feeder. These offer the birds plenty of space to perch and eat - they are less likely to come to a crowded bird feeder.
Red-winged blackbirds also prefer being near a water source. Red-winged blackbirds drink water. If you have a pond or reservoir near your home, surrounded by aquatic vegetation like cattails and bulrushes, you are even more likely to be successful in attracting these birds.
Habitat and Diet Connection
Red-winged Blackbirds spend the breeding season in wet places like fresh or saltwater marshes and rice paddies. You may also find them breeding in drier places like sedge meadows, alfalfa fields, and fallow fields. Occasionally, Red-winged Blackbirds nest in wooded areas along waterways. In fall and winter, they congregate in agricultural fields, feedlots, pastures, and grassland. Habitat also plays a role in their diet; for example, Red-winged blackbirds do not eat cattails, but instead, use them as nesting materials. Cattails and other aquatic vegetation such as bulrush, sedges, and winterberry are vital for blackbird habitat.
Behavior and Diet
Male Red-winged Blackbirds spend much of the breeding season sitting on a high perch over their territories and singing their hearts out. To defend his territory and attract a mate, male perches on high stalk with feathers fluffed out and tail partly spread, lifts leading edge of wing so that red shoulder patches are prominent, and sings. Also sings in slow, fluttering flight. Females tend to slink through reeds and grasses collecting food or nest material. Both males and females defend nests from intruders and predators.
Red-winged Blackbirds fiercely defend their territories during the breeding season. Over a quarter of the male’s time is spent vigorously defending his territory from other males and predators. Red-winged Blackbirds will often declare war on the Marsh Wrens in their territory. Blackbirds will eat the eggs of the marsh wren and vice versa.
Red-winged Blackbirds are one of the most polygamous of all bird species. They have been observed to have as many as 15 females nesting in the territory of a single male. This species is polygynous, and males mate with up to 15 females. One male often has more than one mate.
Conservation Status
Though they may be one of the most abundant native birds on the continent, Red-winged Blackbird populations declined by about 0.72 per year throughout most of their range between 1966 and 2019, resulting in a cumulative estimated decline of 28% according to the North American Breeding Bird Survey. Partners in Flight estimates a global breeding population of 180 million, down from 190 million in 1974. Large flocks of Red-winged and other blackbirds can cause wide-scale damage to sunflower, corn and rice crops. As a result of such direct control measures, humans are an important source of adult mortality in this species.