Early one morning in June, I was cycling along Chisago County Road 20 and passed a pasture of singing grassland birds. I heard bobolinks, savannah sparrows, a single eastern meadowlark and, I couldn’t believe my ears, a dozen chortling dickcissels.
I sometimes confuse the songs of dickcissels with sedge wrens, so I stopped my bike to listen. Soon, a bright, loud dickcissel sang directly in front of me, perched on a scrubby tree. Undoubtedly, he had a nest within the low branches of that bush, a perfect place for one.
Dickcissels are not uncommon, but most folks have not seen or heard one. The birds, like other grassland birds, do not come to backyard feeders. They often perch on wires, but are not exceptionally flashy, so they don’t garner the attention of, say, an azure eastern bluebird.
Often termed “midget meadowlarks” dickcissels resemble them with yellow breasts marked by a black V . But they are much smaller, about the size of a large sparrow. Their wings sport handsome chestnut patches. They sing their name, “dick dick dick cissel”, sometimes hidden in grass, sometimes out in the open. Birders key in on this song to detect their presence.
Birders from all over Minnesota are reporting high levels of dickcissels this summer. T. S. Roberts would term it “A Dickcissel Year.” It was well-known in his day that dickcissels might “have a moment” and then not be seen again for many years. This is the pattern of an irruptive species, abundant some years and absent others, in an unpredictable pattern.
Dickcissels overwinter in South America, migrating in large flocks to reach the grounds. Researchers have identified three distinct habitats the birds require in the winter: grasslands or croplands to forage; brushy vegetation as resting areas; and dense vegetation in marshes or native grasslands to roost in at night.
On their summer breeding grounds, Dickcissels nest in small shrubs or on the ground. They eat seeds and insects. The breeding system is polygenous—a singing male attracts as many females to his territory as can be supported, and he mates with them all. Because of the ground nesting predilection, their nests are often destroyed by early summer haying. I was relieved to see the meadow where I first heard them was usually untouched because horses pastured on it.
Recent research has explained “Dickcissel Years” in terms of extreme weather events. The birds appear in large numbers on the edges of their range—Minnesota is on the far northern edge—in atypical weather conditions. Drought, for example, will push the birds out of their core range to the edges. This tendency demonstrates the importance of range edges to maintain the species.
Enjoy our Dickcissel Year. To locate them, learn their song, available here: Dickcissel Song on Youtube.
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