Signs of Spring Update: March 8, 2002 Today's Report Includes: First Red-winged Blackbirds Back in Marshes Recognizing Home: Challenge Question #7 Starter Home: Challenge Question #8 Interesting Experiment: What's Your Prediction? Red Shoulders Try This! Sing a Song of Sixpence: Link to Fascinating Facts Take a Gander at Journey North's Redwing Dictionary! Name That Tune: Challenge Question #9 Survivors: Discussion of Challenge Question #6 Please Report "Signs of Spring" From Your Part of the World! First Red-winged Blackbirds Back in Marshes Even though water is still frozen in many areas, red-winged blackbirds are starting to appear in marshes again. The first to return are adult males, who often return to the same territory they held the previous year. The map shows you where they are now. Be sure to report your redwings and see the data on our final map May 3! When the very first redwing appears in a marsh, usually in early morning, he may perch on a tall cattail or weed and sing. If any other redwings are near, they will fly in and sing, too. But if our first redwing is alone, he'll look around, stay for a few minutes, and then fly away for a day or even several days. There is little food in a frozen marsh, so he usually flies off to a nearby barnyard or farm field, where he will eat partially-digested seeds in manure and whatever other seeds and grain he can find. When he returns to the marsh, he may quickly leave again if no other males have arrived. But as soon as he discovers another male there, he will stay longer and display more. No matter how many males are there, by afternoon they all fly off to feed where food is more abundant. It doesn't usually take more than a few days before the whole marsh is alive with redwing males calling and displaying and chasing each other. As water opens up, insects emerge again and plants begin growing -- and territorial redwings spend more and more of their day in the marsh. Recognizing Home: Challenge Question #7 Photo Courtesy of Ann Cook Within the first few days after redwings start appearing in a marsh, all the males that had nested there the year before are back, usually each on their own territory. Winter knocks over a lot of cattails, and the marsh looks very different than it did last summer. How do the males recognize their own territory? Challenge Question #7: List as many clues as you can think of that a redwinged blackbird might use for recognizing his territory from last year. (To respond to this question, please follow the instructions below.) Starter Home: Challenge Question #8 When a redwing dies, it usually happens over the winter. That means some redwing territories won't have an adult male to return them this spring. If a good territory isn't claimed by last year's owner, what will happen to the empty territory? Challenge Question #8: Try to come up with three different possibilities for what happens to a red-winged blackbird territory that isn't taken over by last year's male. (To respond to this question, please follow the instructions below.) Interesting Experiment: What's Your Prediction? Robert Nero is a professor of ornithology at the University of Manitoba. He studied red-winged blackbirds when he was a student at the University of Wisconsin in the1950s. One day he set a live trap in his study area, and that afternoon he found a resident male (one he had banded) in the trap. And there were 3 new males fighting over the territory, which the resident male couldn't defend because he was trapped! For an experiment, Dr. Nero took the male home for the night and brought him back the next morning. When he arrived back in the marsh, the three new males were still on the territory, still fighting over it but each settling into a piece of it. Before you read on, stop here and make a prediction: What do you think happened when Dr. Nero released the resident male? (Wait! Are you done?) In less than an hour, the resident male had chased off all three new males and was back on his perch! Does that surprise you? Why or why not? Red Shoulders Dr. Nero did another experiment, this time on some redwing's red shoulder feathers, or epaulets. First he captured a banded bird and painted his epaulets with black India ink. The bird disappeared for a day. When he came back, his epaulets were almost back to normal because he had spent so much time preening off the ink. Another experimenter, Douglas Smith, tried the same test using a black dye that could not be washed or preened off. Of the birds he tested, over half lost their territories to other males. But some managed to defend their territory even without their red epaulets.Before you read on, stop here and draw a conclusion: What could experiments like this prove? (State your conclusion before you read on.) Experiments like this have proven that redwings defend their territory using both their visual displays AND their vocalizations. Try This! If you have access to a marsh where red-winged blackbirds are establishing territories, try to spend 15 minutes out there every day for a couple of weeks. Find a good observation spot where you can stand or sit, and watch and listen closely. After a couple of days, you may be able to tell a few individuals from the others. Try mapping out redwing territories. Sing a Song of Sixpence Were Mother Goose's "four-and-twenty blackbirds baked in a pie" related to our red-winged blackbirds? How many toes does a redwing have on each foot? How long did the oldest known banded red-winged blackbird live? They're hatched in watery marshes, so can baby blackbirds swim? Find the answers to these questions and more when you visit our page of fascinating facts! Facts About Red-winged Blackbirds Take a Gander at Journey North's Redwing Dictionary! Red-winged Blackbirds produce a wide variety of sounds. They are most famous for their "Okalee" call, but scientists have discovered others. To learn more about redwing sounds, check out the brand new Journey North Redwing Dictionary. You can find out what's going on in the redwing world if you know what the birds are talking about. NOTE: Be sure to see the Dictionary's link to our fun Redwing Vocabulary Quiz. The quiz will help you test your ears and get ready for our next challenge question! Name That Tune! Challenge Question #9 Have you read the Red-wing Blackbird Dictionary and taken the RedwingVocabulary Quiz? If your have, you're ready to answer Challenge Question #9: "What call will a redwing give when it sees YOU coming?" (To respond to this question, please follow the instructions below.) Survivors: Discussion of Challenge Question #6 After exploring earthworms in our last report, we asked: "Would you expect to see more baby or adult earthworms in early spring? Explain your reasoning." This is a little tricky! We would expect to SEE more adult earthworms, because they are so much larger and easier to notice. But -- we would expect there to BE more baby worms, because so many adults die over the winter. Journey North robin expert Laura Erickson expects most of the earthworms that emerge in spring will be babies that survived in their egg cases over the winter. But usually the first worms she notices are adults. This is because even if there are fewer adults, they are much bigger and more noticeable. Some worms can survive to be ten years old, so many do survive even though some freeze to death in winter! Report your "Signs of Spring" sightings to Journey North. Please Report "Signs of Spring" From Your Part of the World! Remember to share your sightings of first frogs, earthworms, red-winged blackbirds, barn swallows, emerging leaves, flowing sap, melting ice and other spring events. We'll incorporate your news into these reports. (Watch for the final Red-winged blackbird map in our May 3 report!) How to Respond to Today's Challenge Questions: IMPORTANT: Answer only ONE question in each e-mail message. 1. Address an E-mail message to: jn-challenge-spring@learner.org 2. IMPORTANT: In the Subject Line of your message write: Challenge Question #7 (or #8 or #9). 3. In the body of the message, give your answer to the question above. The Next Signs of Spring Update Will be Posted on March 15, 2002. Copyright 2002 Journey North. All Rights Reserved. Please send all questions, comments, and suggestions to our feedback form