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Yellow-headed Blackbird

Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus ORDER: PASSERIFORMES FAMILY: ICTERIDAE

IUCN Conservation Status: Least Concern

Its brilliant yellow head, together with its loud, rusty-hinge call, make the Yellow-headed Blackbird a conspicuous presence in western wetlands. It breeds in loose colonies and places its nest over water, attached to cattails and reeds.

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Calls

  • Song, calls
    Recorded by Geoffrey A. Keller, Randolph Scott Little
    • Courtesy of Macaulay Library
    © Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Song a few musical notes followed by harsh, scratchy buzzing, like very large, very rusty metal hinges squealing.

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Search the Macaulay Library online archive for more sounds and videos