The blackbird family (Icteridae) consists of 94 medium-sized species of birds that occur only in the Americas. Blackbirds are found in widespread habitats, ranging from wetlands, to prairies, to forests. The most common members of the family are various species of blackbirds, grackles, cowbirds, orioles, meadowlarks, bobolink, and others.
Blackbirds exploit a wide range of habitats. Most species occur in tropical forests of various sorts, but virtually all types of terrestrial and wetland habitats are utilized by some species. In North America, the northern oriole (Icterus galbula) is a species of open forests, where it builds its characteristic, pendulous nests, often in elm trees. The bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus) and meadowla…
Cowbirds are considered to be an important pest in those parts of North America to which the species has expanded its range as a result of the fragmentation of the initially forested landscape by humans. Birds in those regions tend not to be well adapted to cowbird parasitism, and the reproductive success of their populations can be markedly reduced by this relationship. In some cases, cowbirds ar…
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