Tricolored Blackbird Portal

This is the species account for the tricolored blackbird that appears in the publication "California Bird Species of Special Concern: A ranked assessment of species, subspecies, and distinct populations of birds of immediate conservation concern in California."

This publication should be cited as:

Shuford, W. D. and Gardali, T., editors. 2008. California Bird Species of Special Concern: A ranked assessment of species, subspecies, and distinct populations of birds of immediate conservation concern in California. Studies of Western Birds 1. Western Field Ornithologists, Camarillo, California, and California Department of Fish and Game, Sacramento. This volume is available from Allen Press at the location below.

Thank you to Dave Shuford and Tom Gardali, editors of the California Bird Species of Special Concern, and Ted Beedy, the species account author, for providing the pdf of this document and for permitting us to provide it for download.

This special edition of the Central Valley Bird Club Bulletin was devoted to the tricolored blackbird.

This report summarizes a field survey of 44 known and potential tricolored blackbird colony locations conducted by Richard A. Erickson, LSA Associates, Horacio de la Cueva, Biologia de la Conservacion, and Mark J. Billings, LSA Associates in northern Baja California, Mexico from January through August, 2007. Breeding was confirmed at only one of the sites surveyed.

Extreme drought conditions were observed in this region during the survey interval and are believed responsible for depressing prey abundance and resulting in poor reproductive performance in most terrestrial bird species, including the tricolor.

This report, by Tom Paulek, former Area Manager of the San Jacinto Wildlife Area in Riverside County, and his wife Susan Nash, an attorney, summarizes their survey of southern California tricolored blackbird breeding colony locations in Orange, Los Angeles, Riverside, and San Diego counties during the 2007 breeding season.

Prior to their survey, they contacted several prominent southern California biologists, including Kimball Garrett of the L.A. County Museum, Pete Bloom, formerly of the National Audubon Society, and Phillip Unitt of the San Diego Natural History Museum, to assess existing knowledge and to learn the locations of previous colonies.

Their survey resulted in the detection of one colony of 800-1,000 adults in San Diego county and this was supplemented toward the end of their survey with information provided by Tyler Grant of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Carlsbad, California, of a second colony in San Diego county of approximately 100 adults.

These were the only tricolored blackbird colonies documented in southern California in 2007, a year of record drought and a near-complete reproductive collapse throughout the range of the species (Meese, 2007; Erickson, de la Cueva, and Billings 2007).

This report summarizes field work conducted by Dr. Robert J. Meese during the 2006 field season, including colony detection, monitoring, descriptions of colony fates, estimates of productivity, and recommendations for additional conservation actions. This report was submitted to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and Audubon California, who supported the field work.

This report summarizes field work conducted by Dr. Robert J. Meese during the 2007 field season, including colony detection, monitoring, descriptions of colony fates, estimates of productivity, color-banding, and conservation recommendations. This report highlights the near-complete reproductive failure of the species in California in 2007. This report was submitted to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and Audubon California, who supported the field work.

Summary report of the 2001 statewide Survey, coordinated by Point Reyes Bird Observatory (PRBO). Prepared by Diana Humple and Roy Churchwell.