Yellow Headed Blackbird

By Al Lowe
Nature, Science and You

This blackbird is primarily a native of the West. Its normal range is western Canada, and the great plains of the U.S. as far south as California. It has always been quite scarce in Northwestern Ontario.
However, it does seem to be increasing in numbers here in the Rainy River District, and to be pushing further east as time goes by.
This is a bird which anyone can identify very easily. It is black, except that its head and neck are bright orangey-yellow, and it has some white patches in its wings. No other bird looks like it at all. The female is much duller, sort of brownish, with quite a bit of yellow on her throat and breast.
These birds generally breed in marshy areas, or lakes with lots of bulrushes in them. They spend almost all of their summers in them, building nests and raising young.
The ‘song’ of the Yellow-headed Blackbird is a disaster. When he goes to sing, the male does a lot of twisting and writhing, as if in great pain, and then comes out with a drawn-out descending buzz, often described as being like the rusty hinges in a horror movie. The female seems to be quite impressed. However, and she undertakes nest building and incubation of eggs all be herself.
The nest is built of water-soaked reeds recovered from the water, and attached to sturdy marsh stems, usually in fairly deep water. The nest dries out to a nice comfortable basket. After the eggs hatch, the female feeds the young almost exclusively by herself. No equal opportunity here!
In the fall, these birds tend to wander over all of the western plains, flocking with grackles, redwings and other blackbirds. Eventually, they form part of those gigantic flocks which plague the farmers of the south - hundreds of thousands of birds which can destroy millions of dollars worth of crops in a very short time.
Outside of damage done to grain crops, mainly in the south, these birds are quite useful. Much of their diet consists of insects and spiders, along with the seeds of wild grasses and weeds. They have been known to make themselves extremely useful during the outbreak of grasshoppers in the west. On the whole, the Yellow-head is probably a beneficial bird, except in areas where it can do serious damage to standing grain.
Watch for the Yellow-headed Blackbird (Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus). The male is a very striking bird indeed. They seem to be extending their range toward our direction.