Icterids

Icterids is the common name known to members of the family Icteridae

The majority of the species are neotropical migrants. They winter in the warmer latitudes about the equator and go either north or south (depending on which side of the equator they usually call home) to cooler latitudes for the summer propagation season.

There are approximately one hundred dissimilar species of Icterids, twenty of them common in the United States. The majority people know them through their generic names: blackbirds, grackles, cowbirds, meadowlarks and orioles. The Bobolink is the merely species in its genus.

Common family traits are surface, at best. They are extremely adaptable birds, living in most human occupied areas that provide adequate food, water and shelter. Their diets are diverse consisting of insects, seeds and fruit, and it is comparatively easy to attract them to back yard feeders.).