The Bobolink
(Dolichonyx oryzivorus) Blackbird family
Called also: REEDBIRD; MAYBIRD; MEADOW-BIRD; AMERICAN ORTOLAN; BUTTER-BIRD; SKUNK BLACKBIRD
{Illustration facing p. [74])
Length—7 inches. A trifle larger than the English sparrow.
Male—In spring plumage: black, with light-yellow patch on upper neck, also on edges of wings and tail feathers. Rump and upper wings splashed with white. Middle of back streaked with pale buff. Tail feathers have pointed tips. In autumn plumage, resembles female.
Female—Dull yellow-brown, with light and dark dashes on back, wings, and tail. Two decided dark stripes on top of head.
Range—North America, from eastern coast to western prairies. Migrates in early autumn to Southern States, and in winter to South America and West Indies.
Migrations—Early May. From August to October. Common summer resident.
Perhaps none of our birds have so fitted into song and story as the bobolink. Unlike a good child, who should "be seen and not heard," he is heard more frequently than seen. Very shy, of peering eyes, he keeps well out of sight in the meadow grass before entrancing our listening ears. The bobolink never soars like the lark, as the poets would have us believe, but generally sings on the wing, flying with a peculiar self-conscious flight horizontally thirty or forty feet above the meadow grass. He also sings perched upon the fence or tuft of grass. He is one of the greatest poseurs among the birds.
In spring and early summer the bobolinks respond to every poet's effort to imitate their notes. "Dignified 'Robert of Lincoln' is telling his name," says one; "Spink, spank, spink," another hears him say. But best of all are Wilson Flagg's lines:
… "Now they rise and now they fly;
They cross and turn, and in and out,
and down the middle and wheel about,
With a 'Phew, shew, Wadolincon;
listen to me Bobolincon!'"