Red-winged Blackbird
Agelaius phoeniceus · New World Blackbirds and Orioles
Banding codeRWBL
Keys to identifying it
1Size & shape
About 8.5 in long.
2Color pattern
- Male: glossy black with red-and-yellow shoulders
- Female: heavily streaked brown, sparrow-like
- Sharp conical bill
3Habitat & season
Cattail marshes, ditches, wet fields
In northern Utah: year-round.
Seen most often in February, March, April and May.
Share of the region’s research-grade iNaturalist bird observations each month, scaled to this bird’s peak. Highlighted bars are its peak months.
4Voice
A gurgling 'conk-la-ree!' song; sharp 'check' calls.
“conk-la-reeee!”
iNat 361156474 by eb50 · Matt Knoop Memorial Park, Park City, UT, US · CC0
Know it
- Males can hide or flash their red shoulder patches.
- One of the most abundant birds in North America.
- A single male may have many females nesting in his territory.
Often confused with
European Starling
American Crow
Virginia Rail- Yellow-winged Blackbird
- Brown-headed Cowbird
From iNaturalist identification data for northern Utah.
From Wikipedia
The red-winged blackbird is a passerine bird of the family Icteridae found in most of North America and much of Central America. It breeds from Alaska and Newfoundland south to Florida, the Gulf of Mexico, Mexico, and Guatemala, with isolated populations in western El Salvador, northwestern Honduras, and northwestern Costa Rica. It may winter as far north as Pennsylvania and British Columbia, but northern populations are generally migratory, moving south to Mexico and the Southern United States.
Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0