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Dickcissel | Spiza americana
Dickcissel | Arrocero americano
The Dickcissel is a sparrow-like cardinal of the prairies and grain fields of the central United States. It winters in large, dense flocks in grasslands and rice fields of Central America and northern South America, where it is considered a pest of rice farming. The name imitates the song.
Voice
In flight a low, buzzy frrrt, by which passing birds can be identified. The song is a dry, staccato dick-dick-ciss-ciss-ciss, seldom heard in winter.
Recording: Anne McCormack — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
14–16 cm, stocky, with a thick, blue-grey conical bill. The male has a grey head with a yellow supercilium and yellow malar, a white throat and a black 'V' on the upper breast; breast and belly are yellow, the back brown with black streaks and the shoulder chestnut. In winter the black of the breast is largely hidden. The female resembles a House Sparrow, with a pale supercilium that turns yellow behind the eye, a yellow wash on the breast, a thin dark malar stripe and a rufous shoulder. Juveniles are duller with fine streaks on breast and flanks.
Confusion species
Female House Sparrow Passer domesticus lacks the yellow on supercilium and breast and the rufous shoulder, and has a yellowish rather than grey bill. Female Bobolink Dolichonyx oryzivorus is warmer buff-yellow, with black head stripes and a pointed tail. Eastern Meadowlark Sturnella magna also has a black 'V' on a yellow breast but is much larger, with a long, pointed bill.
Habitat
Open grassland, savanna, rice fields, sugar cane and grain fields and rough field margins. In winter it eats mainly seeds, in the breeding season also insects. Wintering flocks roost communally in reeds, sugar cane or scrub.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
On Trinidad an irregular winter visitor in the lowlands, mainly around rice fields and grassland, in some years in large flocks; a vagrant on Tobago. In the north-west of the region a rare passage migrant, with records from the Bahamas, Cuba, the Cayman Islands, Jamaica and San Andrés. Elsewhere, including Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, the Lesser Antilles and the ABC Islands, a vagrant. Breeds in the central United States and southern Canada; winters from southern Mexico to Colombia and Venezuela.
- Resident
- Summer visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Winter visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
On Trinidad the rice fields and open lowland grasslands are the places to search for flocks in winter, especially at dusk when they fly to their roosts. Elsewhere the species is most often detected by its buzzy flight call over grassland in September–October.
Conservation status
Not threatened. Numbers fluctuate strongly from year to year. In the wintering areas in Venezuela flocks in rice fields have been controlled on a large scale; in addition, breeding habitat is lost through agricultural intensification.
Scientific name
Spiza americana | (Gmelin, 1789)
Gmelin described the species in 1789 as Emberiza americana; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Spiza was introduced in 1824 by Bonaparte. Spiza is the Ancient Greek word for a finch, probably the chaffinch. americana is Latin for 'American'. The specimen the first description was based on came from New York.