H, E. Harmon, age 13, of West Columbia, S.C., for his question:
Where does the blackbird build his nest?
The glossy blackbird winters in the Southland. However, he never spends the summer there and summer is nesting time. No wonder Lindy's young reader in Columbia, South Carolina, wonders where this perky bird brings up his family.
This fellow is the brewer blackbird and he is glossy black all over. His relative, the handsome redwing blackbird, may be seen in the Carolinas during the nesting season. This graceful bird., often called the Sergeant bird, wears epaulettes of red and yellow on his neat shoulders.
The brewer blackbird has very definite ideas about summer and winter homes He feeds on oats, wheat, the reeds of many weeds and certain insects. For this reason, you might expect to find him in the cereal‑rich plains around the Great Lakes. For some reason, this is not so. He never visits this grain‑rich region, summer or winter.
In the Southwestern deserts and prairies, the brewer blackbird is a. permanent resident, summer and winter. He is also a permanent resident over a wide area bordering the Pacific Coast.
hs you know, the brewer blackbird is a winter resident around Columbia, from late fall until March or 4ril. He leaves you to fly northwest, He may settle in the western region of the Great Plains or fly on to the far western prairies. There he settles and begins to think about bringing up a family.
Mr. Brewer is from eight to ten inches long. There is a purplish tinge to the glossy plumage of his head and chest, and his most outstanding feature is a pair of round yellow eyes, He struts along with wings partly spread and slightly drooped. Mrs. Brewer is a brownish grey bird with soft brown eyes. She is less conspicuous so that her enemies will be less likely to notice her as she nestles on her eggs,
The nest of the Brewer blackbirds is built from twigs and coarse grasses and lined with softer grasses. Mama lays from four to seven dull white eggs almost entirely covered with brown and black freckles. The are sizeable eggs, about an inch long.
The nest may be in a shrub or in a pino tree, but no higher than 10 feet or so. More likely, the hopeful parents will build their grassy nest right on the ground.
The chicks will hatch, learn to fly and become educated through the summer months. Come fall, the parent birds will feel the cool prairie wind and know its message. Mother Nature will remind them of the mild winters of the Southland. Then off they fly, the parents and all the youngsters who were lucky enough to grow up. Some of them, of course, will decide to winter in and around Columbia, South Carolina.