Red-winged Blackbird Experiment

Red Winged Blackbird Behavior

So last Monday, our lovely Ecology class decided to go on a field trip to the Pond lab! No, we did not go to observe pond creatures, we went to stalk the red-winged blackbird and their behavior.

just sittin'

We each took one pond out of 18 and studied a male and a female for a half an hour each. We focused on interactions between males and females and marked where each bird went throughout the half hour.

Wrong! Not a child's self expression! It is Natalie's beautiful illustration of observations
of where the male ( blue) and female (red)  went. 

We discovered that the males tend to be much more active than the females. When they're not competing for territories, they tend to sit on high perches, watching over their areas. Females, on the other hand, keep to themselves. They seem to like to hop around the ponds, foraging and checking on nests. In addition, males are much more vocal than females, chattering, singing, and making interesting noises in general. The female, however, only seems to chatter, especially when something approaches her nest.


We also looked at how males with different types of territories compared to each other in terms of color. We found that males with brighter epaulets (i.e. more attractive) had better territories than those who didn't. "Better territories" included tall, dense reeds, clearer water, and protection from potential predators, which tended to be in the middle of the collection of ponds, away from the forest. Many of the males that were found around poor territories with little foliage were found to have weak colors on their wings. 

Karen and Cristy's diagram of ponds 1-18 and  their male quality,
with red hearts being the most attractive and broken hearts the least. So sad.

So that's what we learned about red wing black birds! Yay!