Red-winged blackbirds are 7-9.5 inches (18-24 cm) in length with a wingspan of 12-16 inches (31-40 cm).
The male red-winged blackbird is black with a red patch bordered in yellow on his shoulders.
The female looks nothing like the male. She is a streaky brown and creamy white. There is a small rusty orange patch on her shoulders, and she has a white eye stripe.
Red-winged blackbirds have a conical bill. The male’s bill is black. The female’s bill is gray.
The male red-winged blackbird spends the breeding season on a high perch near water. These areas include freshwater marshes and saltwater marshes, waterways, wet roadsides, drier meadows, and old fields.
The female is nearby, but stays lower in the grass, weaving through the vegetation looking for food and constructing a nest. In the winter, the red-winged blackbird gathers in large flocks looking for food in fields, feedlots, and pastures.
The red-winged blackbird is an omnivore and eats different things depending on the season. In the winter, it eats mostly insects.
In the summer, it eats seeds from ragweed, cocklebur, sunflowers, corn, and wheat. Sometimes, it will poke at aquatic weeds to get at the insects living inside the plants.
The female red-winged blackbird is a master nest-builder. In a wet area like a marsh, she weaves reeds around the base of tall marsh plants, such as cattails. Throughout her nest, she adds wet leaves and decaying wood to add strength. She then plasters the inside with mud and lines the nest with fine grasses.
In her nest, she lays 2-4 pale blue eggs, which she incubates for about two weeks. When they hatch, the chicks are blind and have no feathers. The chicks remain in the nest for about 14 days.
The red-winged blackbird has a lifespan of around 2 years in the wild.
The male red-winged blackbird is a fierce defender of his territory. He is constantly chasing other males out of his territory and will attack predators. Sometimes he will attack larger animals like horses and humans.
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The red-winged blackbird is found across New Hampshire.
It is a year-long resident in the extreme southern part of the state. In the rest of the state, it is migratory.
The red-winged blackbird can be found throughout the continental United States, from coast to coast.
In the summer, it migrates north to Canada and the northern U.S. and can be found in small sections of Alaska.
It is also found in Mexico and Central America.
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