Small numbers of Rusty Blackbirds are currently moving south through the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed. Look for individuals and small flocks feeding in damp woods and along lake and river shorelines. These uncommon birds nest far to our north in wet coniferous and mixed forests as well as willow thickets, often in muskeg or beaver pond-created habitat. Rusty Blackbirds spend the colder months in the wooded swamps of the southeastern and south-central United States. Loss of habitat has reduced their numbers dramatically, as has their misfortune to occasionally join flocks of foraging Red-winged Blackbirds and Common Grackles on the wintering grounds where all of these species fall victim to avicide poisons placed on feedlots to eradicate European Starlings.
