Book Review: The Red-winged Blackbird
The Red-winged Blackbird: The Biology of a Strongly Polygynous Songbird, by Les Beletsky Reviewed by Jeff Hiebert An excellent overview of the biology of a much studied and common bird. The book focuses on Red-winged Blackbirds' breeding biology and the studies most focused on are for a particular population in Washington state which the author has studied for years. One of the interesting points the book puts across is that Red-winged blackbirds are common across the United States, southern Canada, and Mexico but they exhibit different behaviours in different populations/regions. This is sort of a rule across animal species, but it was interesting to see it demonstrated and explored with this familiar bird. Lots of interesting discussions of how animal behaviour research is done and how we know so much about a species because we've studied them for so long…continue reading