New World blackbirds | Icteridae

Troepialen | Ictéridos

An exclusively American family that does one thing differently with the ordinary songbird bill. The bill is straight, sharp and without a hook, and it is used not to pinch something shut but to lever it open: the bird drives the closed tip into a leaf sheath, a rolled leaf or a crack in the bark and then forces the mandibles apart, laying the food bare. The skull and jaw muscles are built for it, and much of the family feeds this way. In many groups the males are boldly marked in yellow, orange or red against black, while the females stay duller and greener. Several genera weave a deep hanging pouch of plant fibre at the end of a branch, out of reach of climbing predators; others build a cup in reeds or a bush, or lay their eggs in other birds' nests. The family occurs only in the Americas; in Europe it means vagrants and nothing more.