Your Florida Backyard NSiS Home Page Your Florida Backyard Blackbirds & Orioles
While they primarily eat insects on the ground, all but the Meadowlark visit feeders. Red-winged blackbirds, cowbirds, and grackles often forage in mixed flocks during fall and winter. None will use nest boxes.
Cowbirds lay their eggs in the nests of other birds, often removing the original eggs to ensure theirs will be incubated. If a mixed brood does hatch, the larger cowbird hatchling will crowd out the others and place high demands for food on the foster parent(s). When it leaves the nest, it will join other cowbirds.
The Spot-breasted Oriole is found in a very limited area along the southeastern coast.

name area season diet/native food plants
Red-winged BlackbirdNCSSpSuFW-Bseeds*, grains*, insects
grasses, blackberry
Brown-headed CowbirdNCSSpSuFW-Bseeds*, insects
Boat-tailed GrackleNCSSpSuFW-Bseeds*, grains*, insects
cabbage palm, mulberry, oak
Common GrackleNCSSpSuFW-B
Eastern MeadowlarkNCSSpSuFW-Binsects*, seeds, fruit
blackberry, grasses, pine, sunflower
Baltimore OrioleNCSSpFWinsects*, fruit
dogwood, tupelo
Orchard OrioleNC
insects*, fruit
blackberry, grape, mulberry, serviceberry, viburnum, wild cherry
Spot-breasted OrioleSSpSuFW-B
N=north  C=central  S=south
Sp=spring  Su=summer  F=fall  W=winter
B=breeds in Florida during season(s) underlined  M=Migrant

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