Bobolink

How to find it

Check rice fields and open grassy areas in the southwest, such as around Coto. Scan flocks of cowbirds and grackles, since the Coto bird was with them. Outside the breeding season Bobolinks in general favour rice fields, so those are the places to look. Listen for the sharp 'pink' call note. Treat any candidate with care, and note the head stripes and the breast before you decide.

How to recognise it

Birds seen in Costa Rica are in non-breeding plumage.

Males show bold buffy stripes on the head and a faint reddish nape. They also have heavy black spotting on the breast and black streaks on the flanks.

Females are similar to the winter male but have a clean, unmarked breast.

Across its range, females and non-breeding birds are light brown with dark streaks and head stripes. Breeding males, which you will not see here, are mostly black with a creamy nape and white back and rump.

The build helps too: it is slimmer than other open-country blackbirds and has a more cone-shaped bill.

What it sounds like

Recording: Thomas Koffel, CC BY 4.0, source, read 4 Nov 2026.

Behaviour and diet

The Bobolink feeds mostly on grass and herb seeds, including rice. It is found alone or in flocks, and sometimes mixes with Red-breasted Meadowlarks or Red-winged Blackbirds.

In the one Coto sighting that was reported, the bird was with cowbirds and grackles.

Away from the breeding grounds it eats mainly seeds, while on the breeding grounds it takes insects such as grasshoppers, crickets and beetles.

Where it lives

In Costa Rica the Bobolink uses grassy clearings, crops, scrub and rice fields.

Most reports are along the Caribbean coast. Single birds sometimes move inland to mid elevations, for example near Cartago.

Small flocks turn up now and then near rice fields on the Pacific side, mostly in the southwest around Laurel and Coto.

Spring birds have not been reported on the mainland, though one strayed to Isla del Coco National Park in April and July.

When to see it

Look from mid-September to October, when it passes through as a rare fall migrant. It is basically absent in spring.

Similar birds

A female Red-winged Blackbird has a streaked breast and no crown stripes. Female and winter Bobolinks also look like some female meadowlark-type blackbirds, so a pale buffy streaked bird in rice fields needs care. A Coto 47 bird first reported as a Bobolink was later judged by the AOCR rare bird committee to be a female Red-breasted Blackbird.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

Tordo Arrocero is the Costa Rican list name. Across the Americas, Spanish names for the species include charlatán, tordo charlatán, chambergo, triste-pía, canadiense and chupador. The Latin name oryzivorus means rice eater, and an old English name is rice bird, from its habit of feeding on cultivated grain in winter and on migration.

Status and conservation

The official Costa Rican list marks the Bobolink as migratory (M), and the species is rare in the country.