With the Wild Things: Blackbirds

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|a With the Wild Things: Blackbirds |h [electronic resource].

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|a Ft. Myers, Florida : |b Whitaker Center in the College of Arts and Sciences, Florida Gulf Coast University.

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|a 5 podcasts, approximately 1 minute each in length

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|a Please contact the owning institution for licensing and permissions. It is the users responsibility to ensure use does not violate any third party rights.

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|a Source: Blackbirds 1 Length of Segment: 00:01:15 Hi, I'm Dr. Jerry Jackson, out with the wild things. When is a blackbird not a blackbird? To answer this riddle, we'll begin with a nursery rhyme phrase: “Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie”. There have been several efforts to find meaning in this rhyme, but all the interpretations aside, this was an English rhyme, and the blackbirds referred to were birds that were often eaten in England and Europe, just as robins were eaten in this country and commonly sold in southern markets a little over a hundred years ago. The blackbird in the rhyme is a black bird, but it is not a true blackbird. In the New World, there is a family of birds collectively known as blackbirds. The blackbird family includes such familiar American birds as our red-winged blackbird, brown-headed cowbird, and boat-tailed grackle. The blackbird of the English nursery rhyme is in the thrush family, the same family that includes the American robin. The American robin and the English blackbird are closely related. Both are commonly seen hopping around on lawns in search of worms, they have a similar cheery song, and both have provided meat for the table. But it took a lot of blackbirds and robins to make a good meat pie.

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|a Source: Blackbirds 2 Length of Segment: 00:01:15 Hi, I'm Dr. Jerry Jackson, out with the wild things. The Baltimore oriole is well known because of the striking black and orange plumage of males, and its sack-like nests woven of grasses and suspended from the tips of branches of tall trees that line city streets. The name 'Baltimore oriole' comes from the official colors of the second British Lord Baltimore, Cecil Calvert, who inherited property in Maryland from his father, and for whom the city there is named. The name 'oriole' comes from a familiar yellow bird native to Eurasia, and to which early naturalists thought our oriole was related. We now know that ours is not a true oriole. The Baltimore oriole is a member of an American family of birds, the New World blackbirds that include such other birds as our red-winged blackbird and boat-tailed grackle. A few years ago, scientists realized that the Bullock's oriole of western North America sometimes interbred with Baltimore oriole, and they renamed the combined orioles with the unimaginative name 'northern oriole'. With further information suggesting that the interbreeding does not result in blending of the characteristics of the two forms, the name 'Baltimore oriole' has been restored to our orange and yellow bird.

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|a Source: Blackbirds 3 Length of Segment: 00:01:16 Hi, I'm Dr. Jerry Jackson, out with the wild things. Perhaps the most conspicuous member of the blackbird family in Florida is the boat-tailed grackle, a bird that gets its name from the long tail of the male. This is that shiny blackbird that you've seen strutting around the parking lots of fast-food restaurants and edges of urban lakes, as well as along our beaches and similar natural habitats. Take a look at that tail. He holds the outer tail feathers much higher than the central ones, forming a very distinct 'V', like a boat's hull. He also holds the tail end in 'V' as he flies, making this bird very easy to identify. The female boat-tail grackle is smaller than the male, without such a distinctive tail. He is black, showing iridescent blue and green all over; she is rich cinnamon-brown. While both frequent parking lots, under more natural conditions, the sexes often go their own ways. The sexes of birds, like people, often use available resources differently. Female boat-tailed grackles build a nest and care for eggs and young. Each male stays busy strutting and defending a group of several females from other males. Females tend to feed more in marshy areas, and males more in the open.

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|a Source: Blackbirds 4 Length of Segment: 00:01:03 Hi, I'm Dr. Jerry Jackson, out with the wild things. While boat-tailed grackles are resident birds and with us year-around, some blackbirds are long-distance migrants, One was made famous by the American poet William Cullen Bryant in a poem he wrote in 1864, 'Robert of Lincoln': Merrily swinging on briar and weed, Near to the nest of his little dame, Over the mountain-side or mead, Robert of Lincoln is telling his name. Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, Spink, spank, spink... The bob-o'-link only passes through our state in spring and fall as it travels from nesting areas in the meadows of northeastern states to the pampas of Argentina. We usually see them in Florida from April through early June, and again from August into November. Watch for them this spring. The males are our only blackbird with white and yellow on the back. Females are brown, and more difficult to identify. During fall migration, both sexes are brown, and they often go unnoticed.

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|a Source: Blackbirds 5 Length of Segment: 00:01:15 Hi, I'm Dr. Jerry Jackson, out with the wild things. Among blackbirds are some known as ‘brood parasites.’ These build no nest and raise no young. They lay their eggs in the nests of other birds and depend on them to raise their young for them. Among these brood parasites in Florida is the brown-headed cowbird. The male brown-headed cowbird is shiny black and as his name suggests, he has a brown head. Females are an inconspicuous mousy gray-brown. Anonymity is their game, and they're good at it. A female cowbird slips one egg into each of five or six different nests and if the egg goes unnoticed, the host will raise the cowbird baby often instead of its own. Cowbird eggs usually hatch before the other eggs in a nest. That means the cowbird baby gets a head-start, and get most of the food; the other nestlings often starve. The brown-headed cowbird has not always been in Florida. It was a bird of the Great Plains that moved east as humans cleared forests and introduced cattle. It was once known as the 'buffalo bird' because of its association with bison, feeding on seeds that passed through its digestive tract. Now it often feeds on undigested seeds that pass through cattle.

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