(_Dolichonyx oryzivorus_) Blackbird family
_Called also_: REEDBIRD; MAYBIRD; MEADOW-BIRD; AMERICAN ORTOLAN;
BUTTER-BIRD; SKUNK BLACKBIRD
(Illustration facing p. 74)
_Length_--7 inches. A trifle larger than the English sparrow.
_Male_--_In spring plumage_: black, with light-yellow patch on
upper neck, also on edges of wings and tail feathers. Rump and
upper wings splashed with white. Middle of back streaked with
pale buff. Tail feathers have pointed tips. _In autumn
plumage_, resembles female.
_Female_--Dull yellow-brown, with light and dark dashes on
back, wings, and tail. Two decided dark stripes on top of
head.
_Range_--North America, from eastern coast to western
prairies. Migrates in early autumn to Southern States, and in
winter to South America and West Indies.
_Migrations_--Early May. From August to October. Common summer
resident.
Perhaps none of our birds have so fitted into song and story as the
bobolink. Unlike a good child, who should "be seen and not heard," he
is heard more frequently than seen. Very shy, of peering eyes, he
keeps well out of sight in the meadow grass before entrancing our
listening ears. The bobolink never soars like the lark, as the poets
would have us believe, but generally sings on the wing, flying with a
peculiar self-conscious flight horizontally thirty or forty feet above
the meadow grass. He also sings perched upon the fence or tuft of
grass. He is one of the greatest _poseurs_ among the birds.
In spring and early summer the bobolinks respond to every poet's
effort to imitate their notes. "Dignified 'Robert of Lincoln' is
telling his name," says one; "Spink, spank, spink," another hears him
say. But best of all are Wilson Flagg's lines:
... "Now they rise and now they fly;
They cross and turn, and in and out,
and down the middle and wheel about,
With a 'Phew, shew, Wadolincon;
listen to me Bobolincon!'"
After midsummer the cares of the family have so worn upon the jollity
of our dashing, rollicking friend that his song is seldom heard. The
colors of his coat fade into a dull yellowish brown like that of his
faithful mate, who has borne the greater burden of the season, for he
has two complete moults each year.
The bobolinks build their nest on the ground in high grass. The eggs
are of a bluish white. Their food is largely insectivorous:
grasshoppers, crickets, beetles, spiders, with seeds of grass
especially for variety.
In August they begin their journey southward, flying mainly by night.
Arriving in the Southern States, they become the sad-colored,
low-voiced rice or reed bird, feeding on the rice fields, where they
descend to the ignominious fate of being dressed for the plate of the
epicure.
Could there be a more tragic ending to the glorious note of the gay
songster of the north?