Red-winged blackbirds searching beneath pine bark for insects in winter

B. Meanley

doi:10.2307/4083067

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Red-winged blackbirds searching beneath pine bark for insects in winter

B. Meanley

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Abstract

Most observers usually associate the Red-winged Blackbird ( Agelaius phoeniceus ) with open country such as marshes or upland fields and their wooded or brushy borders. On the wintering grounds in the coniferous belt of the southeastern United States, however, Red-wings spend some of their time feeding in pine forests. In the course of a day's feeding they move back and forth between pine woods and harvested fields of corn, peanuts, and cotton, or weed fields. It is not unusual to see Red-wings feeding in a scattering of pine trees at the edge of a marsh or in some upland area, but I was surprised to find them in dense stands of pine and to observe their method of feeding there.

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B. Meanley. 1966. Red-winged blackbirds searching beneath pine bark for insects in winter. https://doi.org/10.2307/4083067

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