All species › Passerines › New World blackbirds, troupials and allies › Bobolink
Position in the tree Birds Aves › Birds with a flexible palate Neognathae › All other modern birds Neoaves › Landbirds Telluraves › Falcons, parrots and passerines Australaves › Falcons and passerines Eufalconimorphae › Parrots and passerines Psittacopasserae
Bobolink | Dolichonyx oryzivorus
Bobolink | Tordo arrocero
The Bobolink is a small grassland blackbird that makes one of the longest migrations of any American songbird: from North America to the grasslands of southern South America. Most birds migrate across the Caribbean; in the guide area the species is a scarce passage migrant.
Voice
The song on the breeding grounds is a long, bubbling, tinkling series; rarely heard in the guide area, although males sometimes sing on spring migration. The call, often given in flight, is a metallic pink, by which passing birds can be recognised.
Recording: Christian Kerihuel — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
16–18 cm. Stocky, with a short, conical bill and a short tail with pointed tail feathers. Breeding male black below and on the head, with a creamy-yellow nape and white scapulars and rump. Female, young birds and non-breeding males warm buff to yellowish-brown, with dark crown stripes and a dark stripe behind the eye, a streaked back and fine streaks on the flanks. Autumn migrants are almost all in this buff plumage.
Confusion species
Birds in buff plumage resemble a sparrow. Grasshopper Sparrow Ammodramus savannarum is smaller, with a flatter head and a shorter, more pointed tail, and lacks streaked flanks. Female Dickcissels Spiza americana have a greyer head, a chestnut shoulder patch and a white throat. The female Red-winged Blackbird Agelaius phoeniceus is larger, darker and densely streaked across all the underparts.
Habitat
On migration in open, tall grassland, rice fields, grain fields and damp pastures, especially near the coast. It rests and feeds in small groups in the grass, then eating mainly seeds and rice grains.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Breeds in southern Canada and the northern United States and winters in the grasslands of Bolivia, Paraguay and Argentina. Migrates largely across Florida and the Caribbean islands. In the guide area mainly along the coast of the Yucatán Peninsula, the Caribbean coast of Central America and in Panama; rare elsewhere in Mexico.
- Summer visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
On migration best found by listening for the metallic pink of birds passing over coastal grassland and rice fields, especially in autumn.
Conservation status
Near Threatened (NT). Numbers in North America have declined steeply over a long period, mainly through early mowing of hayfields during the breeding season and the loss of grassland. In the wintering areas and along the migration route birds are also controlled in rice fields and exposed to pesticides.
Scientific name
Dolichonyx oryzivorus | (Linnaeus, 1758)
Linnaeus described the species in 1758 as Fringilla oryzivora; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Dolichonyx was introduced in 1827 by Swainson. Dolichonyx is Greek, from dolikhos 'long' and onux 'claw', after the long hind claw. oryzivorus is Latin, from oryza 'rice' and -vorus '-eating', as migrating flocks once fed en masse in rice fields. The specimen the first description was based on came from South Carolina.