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are right, so that for six people one has truly ‘four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.’ “
To be fair to the author, I should quote from her introduction to this delicacy: “This dish is illegal, since the tak• ing of red-winged blackbirds is forbidden by federal law — which I discovered probably just in time to save myself a term in the penitentiary.”
Redwings were frequently shot in large numbers in the 19th century and the early part of the 20th. Blackbirds descending on rice fields in the southeast could be very destructive and were a serious problem for rice growers along the coast, from Virginia south to Georgia.
Close relatives of the redwing, the bobolinks, were shot by the thousands when, during fall migration, they descended onto rice fields to feed.
To this day, bobolink populations have not recovered from the slaughter. Redwings have maintained populations at a healthy level.
So early do redwings fly north that Thoreau wrote on March 11, 1859: “The birds anticipate the spring; they come to melt the ice with their song.” The redwing’s liquid call from the marsh in very early spring is indeed splendid; it thaws the heart of one weary of winter.
Virginia naturalist John Trott welcomes reader mail, care of this newspaper, P. O. Box 59, Washington, VA 22747.
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