Illustration © David Allen Sibley.
Learn more about these drawings.
Text © Kenn Kaufman, adapted from
Lives of North American Birds
Photo: Ruhikanta Meetei/Audubon Photography Awards
Dolichonyx oryzivorus
Conservation status | Declining significantly in recent decades; loss of nesting habitat is a likely cause. |
---|---|
Family | Blackbirds and Orioles |
Habitat | Hayfields, meadows. In migration, marshes. Original prime breeding areas were damp meadows and natural prairies with dense growth of grass and weeds and a few low bushes. Such habitats still favored but hard to find, and today most Bobolinks in eastern United States nest in hayfields. Migrants stop over in fields and marshes, often feeding in rice fields. |
Forages for insects and seeds both on the ground and while perched up in grass and weed stalks. Except when nesting, usually forages in flocks.
5-6, sometimes 4-7. Grayish to pale reddish brown, heavily blotched with brown and lavender. Incubation is by female only, about 11-13 days. Young: Both parents feed the nestlings. Young leave the nest about 8-14 days after hatching, generally before they are able to fly. 1 brood per year.
Both parents feed the nestlings. Young leave the nest about 8-14 days after hatching, generally before they are able to fly. 1 brood per year.
Mostly insects and seeds. Majority of summer diet is insects, including beetles, grasshoppers, caterpillars, wasps, ants, and many others, also spiders and millipedes. Also eats many seeds of weeds, grasses, and grains. May feed more heavily on grain during migration, and in former times caused much damage in southern rice fields. In winter in the tropics, may also eat some berries.
Males arrive before females on nesting grounds, and display by flying over fields with shallow fluttering wingbeats while singing. In courtship on the ground, male spreads tail, droops wings, points bill down so that yellow nape is prominent. Nest: Placed on the ground (or rarely just above it), well hidden among dense grass and weeds. Typical ground nest is a slight depression holding a shallow open cup of grass and weed stems, lined with finer grasses.
In the broadest and most detailed study of its kind, Audubon scientists have used hundreds of thousands of citizen-science observations and sophisticated climate models to predict how birds in the U.S. and Canada will react to climate change.
This March, for the first time ever, the Delaware River Basin Restoration Program received funding as part of the 2018 omnibus spending bill.
Legislation expands and strengthens conservation efforts made on agricultural lands.
Public lands let us experience wildness in spaces where nature and history converge. How do we make them more inclusive to all?
Pledge to continue to oppose drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, one of the wildest places left in America.
Ask your members of Congress to oppose efforts to weaken the Endangered Species Act.
Let us send you the latest in bird and conservation news.