Red-winged Blackbird

How to find it

Scan the tops of trees, shrubs, fences and wires beside wet grass, because males sit high and sing all day. When they are disturbed while feeding, they fly to the nearest tree and start singing, so watch that tree. Mangrove edges are worth a look too: two males were recorded singing about 50 m apart at 7:14 am in March on the road to Chomes beach in Puntarenas. A flat wetland refuge with unpaved roads and a bird hide or platform lists it among its top birds. Palo Verde National Park in Guanacaste also has it on its checklist, and a pair of males was seen in newly harvested rice fields nearby. Females stay low, so check marsh plants and canal edges for streaked brown birds.

How to recognise it

The male is glossy black with scarlet shoulder patches and a deep buff band below them. The bill and legs are black. He measures about 22 cm, and the black body with red shoulders cannot be mistaken for anything else.

The female looks quite different. She is dark brown above and heavily streaked below, with a pale buff eyebrow. She is smaller than the male, at about 18 cm.

Young birds look like the adult female but are paler below and less buff. Their dark streaks are blacker, narrower and less regular.

What it sounds like

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

Behaviour and diet

Males perch in high, exposed spots such as trees, shrubs, fences and wires, and sing through the day, which makes them easy to notice. Females stay low in vegetation. Males defend their territories hard, attacking other males, predators and even much larger animals such as horses or people.

Outside the breeding season it forms large flocks. In the dry season it gathers in communal roosts of thousands of birds, in cattail beds or trees. Birds do not sleep in their nesting territory: they return in the early morning from a roost whose location is not known.

Where it lives

In Costa Rica it breeds in seasonal marshes and in the grassy vegetation along ponds, rivers and drainage canals. The nest is a woven cup of grass placed low over water.

The core of its range is the lowlands along the lower Tempisque and Bebedero rivers. It is only sporadic elsewhere in the Guanacaste lowlands and around Río Frío on the Caribbean side. Photo records also come from Guápiles and Cuatro Esquinas in Limón, and from around La Fortuna and Los Chiles in San Carlos, in the north.

When to see it

Breeding runs from April to August, and sometimes into November, at least in the Río Frío region. One flat wetland refuge floods from May to October into a large lake, then the water drops and many migratory birds arrive, and birding there is good all year.

Similar birds

The male has no lookalike. Females and young birds can look like sparrows, but they differ in behaviour, have a sharper bill and a darker lower belly, and females show a beige eyebrow stripe. Heavily streaked females and young birds also look different from other similar-sized birds of open country.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

Costa Ricans call it Sargento or Tordo Sargento. Other Spanish names used for the species are tordo alirrojo, tordo capitán and turpial alirrojo.

Status and conservation

Listed as a resident (R) on the AOCR list, and rated Least Concern by BirdLife International.

Photography tips

Males sing from high, exposed perches all day, so a fence, wire or shrub beside a marsh gives a clear view of the red shoulders. Birds flushed while feeding fly to the nearest tree and sing, which can give a second chance for a shot.