Red-breasted Blackbird / Zwartkop soldatenspreeuw, Rediborsu, Roodborstje

Red-breasted Blackbird (Sturnella militaris)

Pictures (click on them to enlarge)
© Dennis Binda	© Jan Hein Ribot	© Ronald Teulings
© Jan Hein Ribot	© Jan Hein Ribot	© K.D. Dijkstra
© Aernout Nieuwkerk	© Frank Valk	© Raoul Ribot
© Dominiek Plouvier	French Guiana © Pascal Dubois	French Guiana © Pascal Dubois

Red-breasted Blackbird: The males are black birds with a splendidly red breast. The females and young have more brown and much less red on their breast. The males can be seen and heard singing on large wet fields with long grass or on cemetaries, ricefields and on the grasssavannas. (the first photo shows a singing male.) As with many birds in this family (for instance the caciques and oropendolas) the males can have more than one female. He will sing in his territory and chase away other males. Sometimes the male will fly up singing and fall back to the ground. The females takes care of the breeding in nests, that can be found on the ground. The blackbirds (outside the breeding season) fly around in larger numbers (dozens) when they assemble to go to sleep together.
The first photo was made by Dennis Binda in August 2008, then one by J.H. Ribot, the third one is by Ronald Teulings (all in Suriname). Jan Hein Ribot photographed a male and a female at Leiding in February 2014. Then one made by K. Dijkstra. The last two were made by Pascal Dubois in French Guyane.
Dominiek Plouvier made the video of a Red-breasted Blackbird with its call.

Video (click the link or the 'play'-button to see)
Video recording of a Red-breasted Blackbird © ;

Distribution

Each small square indicates the observation of at least one (group) of these birds, the medium ones at least four observations on different days and the largest ones ten or more. The color of each square indicates: blue for coastal area, yellow for savanna and red for rainforest.
Not all places in Suriname have been equally often visited by birders, so the distribution of the squares gives an indication of the whereabouts of the birds, but also of the birders. Some places deep in the south have no reported bird observations, by experienced birders, within 60 kilometer.

Abundance in different areas
coastal zone (blue dots on the map) :
northern savannas (yellow dots (in the north)) :
rainforest under 400 m (red dots) :
rainforest above 400 m (red dots) :
Sipaliwini savanna (yellow dots (in the south)) :
A blank is shown if not convincingly reported in the zone. Data interpreted by Arie Spaans, Otte Ottema and Jan Hein Ribot.

Names
Scientific name:	Sturnella militaris
Order:	Passeriformes
Family:	Icteridae, 13 in Suriname
Dutch:	Zwartkop soldatenspreeuw, Rediborsu, Roodborstje
English:	Red-breasted Blackbird
Sranan ('Surinamese'):	Rediborsu, Roodbórstje
Guyana:	Robin red breast
Papiamento:
Spanish (Venezuela):	Tordo pechirrojo
Portugese (Brazil):	Políl;cia-inglesa
Arowak:	Wakuja
Carib:	Wantatoe
French:	Sturnelle militaire

Observations through the year	Observations of breeding through the year

The 582 reported observations of this bird in Suriname, mainly for the last 50 years up to 2018, have been grouped by month. More birds on one day are counted as one observation. Of course, if the graph should depict the total number of birds seen, the differences between the months could be much more pronounced.	The 53 reported breeding observations of this bird in Suriname. Most observations are about nest with eggs, some about fledglings, or feeding at a nest or the building of a nest. Of the about 5000 nests and eggs found for all species together, about 1/3 comes from the egg collection of Penard between 1896 and 1905. For some reason most collecting then was done in the first half of each year, so the shown distribution does not necessarily reflect the actual breeding preferences. The main dry season in Suriname is reckoned to be from half August to the end of November, the main wet season from half April to half August, but the the timing of begin and end does vary from year to year. Around March a second dry season often occurs.

Observations through the year

Observations of breeding through the year

The 582 reported observations of this bird in Suriname, mainly for the last 50 years up to 2018, have been grouped by month. More birds on one day are counted as one observation. Of course, if the graph should depict the total number of birds seen, the differences between the months could be much more pronounced.

The 53 reported breeding observations of this bird in Suriname. Most observations are about nest with eggs, some about fledglings, or feeding at a nest or the building of a nest.

Of the about 5000 nests and eggs found for all species together, about 1/3 comes from the egg collection of Penard between 1896 and 1905. For some reason most collecting then was done in the first half of each year, so the shown distribution does not necessarily reflect the actual breeding preferences.
The main dry season in Suriname is reckoned to be from half August to the end of November, the main wet season from half April to half August, but the the timing of begin and end does vary from year to year. Around March a second dry season often occurs.

Last update: September 2024 by Jan Hein Ribot. Please mail your comments, photos to: jhribot ( residing at ) gmail (point!) com.
observations can be uploaded to suriname.observation.org or ebird.org ).