Bobolink

About the Bobolink

The bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus) is a small New World blackbird and the only member of the genus Dolichonyx. An old name for this species is the "rice bird", from its tendency to feed on cultivated grains during winter and migration. The bobolink breeds in the summer in the United States and Canada, with most of the summer range in the northern U.S. Bobolinks winter in southern South America, primarily Paraguay, Argentina, and Bolivia. Bobolink numbers are rapidly declining due to factors such as agricultural intensification and habitat loss; they are considered threatened in Canada, and are at risk throughout their range.

The bobolink was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae. He placed it with the finches in the genus Fringilla and coined the binomial name Fringilla oryzivora. Linnaeus mainly based his account on "The Rice-Bird" that had been described and illustrated in 1729 by the English naturalist Mark Catesby in his book The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands. Linnaeus specified the type locality as "Cuba... in Carolinam" but this was restricted to the state of... Wikipedia →