Nature Bulletin No. 496-A   June 2, 1973
Forest Preserve District of Cook County
George W. Dunne, President
Roland F. Eisenbeis, Supt. of Conservation

****:THE BOBOLINK

Most of our songbirds nest and find their food in woodlands, along 
woodland borders, or in old orchards. Some, like the robins, house 
wrens, martins and bluebirds, usually prefer to live near human 
habitations -- even in villages and cities. Others, notably the redwing 
blackbird, are found only around marshes and swampy places. But there 
is a small group of songbirds which are seen and heard only in open 
country: prairies, meadows, hayfields and abandoned farm lands. In 
addition to some native sparrows, the horned lark, the killdeer and the 
familiar meadow larks, this group includes that happy-go-lucky 
"harlequin of the meadows": the Bobolink.

In spring the male bobolink cannot be mistaken for any other bird. Like 
the meadow lark and the orioles, he is a member of the blackbird 
family. His underparts are black. The back of his head and neck, 
however, is buff colored and there are conspicuous white patches on his 
shoulders and rump, so that he seems to be wearing "a full dress suit put 
on backwards. "

The bobolink's courtship song is an indescribable bubbling melody that 
tumbles out faster and faster, pitched higher and higher, with short 
variable notes among which "bobolink" can be distinctly heard. It is 
often given during flight; also when perched on a bush or clinging to the 
top of a tall weed; but never too close to his mate's nest. That harum-
scarum rollicking music baffles the interpreters and imitators of bird 
calls although Henry Thoreau caught the spirit of it when he wrote: 
"This flashing, tinkling meteor bursts through the expectant meadow 
air, leaving a train of tinkling notes behind. "

The female bobolink, a demure olive-green bird with buffy underparts 
and stripes on her back and head, looks like a large sparrow. Her nest is 
built on the ground in a heavy stand of tall grass, weeds, clover or 
similar vegetation, and wonderfully concealed although not roofed over 
like that of a meadow lark. The parents never fly directly to it or from 
it. They walk. From 4 to 7 bluish-gray or reddish-brown eggs are 
camouflaged by being heavily spotted.

Until the young are ready to fly, a family of bobolinks consumes vast 
numbers of cutworms, grasshoppers, weevils and other injurious 
insects. Later, weed and grass seeds, or grain, are added to their diet. 
By that time the male looks like a different bird: he has molted and 
wears plumage very much like that of the female and their young. His 
call, if any, is merely a metallic "pink".

During the summer, bobolinks gather first in small flocks and by the 
end of August have begun a leisurely migration to their winter homes 
which may be as far south of the equator as Paraguay or Argentina. 
Some flocks may consist of 2000 or more birds and, like robins, 
meadow larks, orioles and blackbirds, they migrate mostly in daytime 
rather than at night as most songbirds do. There was a time when 
hundreds of thousands of bobolinks, called "rice birds ", were 
slaughtered annually and sold in markets because of the damage they 
did in the rice fields so extensive then in our southern states. Since the 
passage of the Federal Migratory Bird Law in 1913, they have been 
protected.

Our next bulletin will be issued on September 6.  Enjoy your summer.