REDWING TERRITORY

Singing from the top of a cattail, students can easily observe a Red-winged Blackbird defending its territory, the space it needs to find food and build its nest. Introduce the concept of habitats and then read the story about Redwings and their territorial behavior to the students.

Habitat Chant - All plants and animals have four basic requirements that their habitat needs to supply. Students remember this chant; "Food, water, shelter, and space, habitat is a wonderful place." The following activity will help students understand the habitat requirements of the most common songbird in North America, the red-winged blackbird.

In the middle of February there is still ice on the pond as a park ranger leads a group of students to a cattail marsh. With a loud call, a red-winged blackbird offers his disapproval to the approaching group. "It's one of the first signs of spring," the ranger tells the students. "The red winged blackbirds are usually the first songbirds to return in the spring. Even though there is freezing temperatures and it still might snow, we will be seeing robins and bluebirds coming back soon."

Male redwings return to the marshes in Indiana Dunes to a claim territory to build a nest and find food. The students watch the aerial combat going on above the cattails. Two males are chasing each other. It all started when one male flew close to the space defended by another. After the battle both males return to a tall cattail in their territory and announce their dominance by singing. The song is used to announce their presence in the territory they are defending. Rarely are any birds hurt during these battles.

In every community, the pattern is the same for most birds. The male arrives to find a territory. Stronger males usually get a territory with more food and a good nesting area.

Each species of bird has its own habitat requirements. Ducks need a pond, bluebirds defend a hole in a tree to build their nest, and cardinals prefer small tree thickets. Males defend their territories only from males of their own species.

The females arrive later and the males sing to attract a mate. After mating, a nest is built to hide the eggs and young from predators. For most songbirds, both parents find food to feed the young chicks.

The activity you will do next will give you an idea how park researchers would study territorial behavior of red-winged blackbirds in their cattail marsh habitat.

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Park researchers captured and put colored leg bands on male red winged blackbirds so they could study the birds’ territories. The researchers recorded the location of each bird to create a map. Now you can map out each bird’s territory by finding the appropriate box and placing the initial of the color band in it. The locations of the yellow band bird are plotted for you.

(Y) Yellow band: B4, C4, E2, D5, D4, E4. (G) Green band: J2, G4, H4, G8, H10, I7.

(R) Red band: C6, E5, E6, G4, F7, D10. (W) White band: H10, I11, K13, J16, F14, L13. (B) Blue band: J6, J9, M5, K7, N7, M8, M11, K12, J11, nest located at K9.

(O) Orange band: P9, O8, N9, N11, N14, Q9

After you place the letters in the boxes, draw a circle to show the territory you think each bird is defending. The shaded boxes contain the best habitat for a red winged blackbird.

Can you help the researchers come to some conclusions from this information? On a separate piece of paper describe your ideas on how to answer these research questions. The information you have on this sheet might not be enough to answer all the questions. Can you think of a new observation experiment that will give you enough information to answer them? Try to think like a scientist.

(1) Which bird(s) do you think has the best territory?

(2) Which birds do you think are the strongest and weakest?

(3) Do blackbirds hurt each other when they defend their territory?

(4) Does the age of the bird have anything to do with the location and size of the territory?

(5) Where do you think you would discover the nests of each bird?

(6) If the nest is built in a cattail pond, what will keep predators from discovering the nest?

(7) Does the size of the territory affect the number of young that survive?

Redwing Territory answer key

When you take a trip to West Beach, hike or stop at Long Lake to observe the birds and cattails.

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