Agelaius phoeniceus

Composed of two groups: phoeniceus (Red-winged Blackbird) and gubernator (Bicolored Blackbird, of Mexican Plateau) (AOU 1998). A sister taxon of A. tricolor and constitutes a superspecies with A. assimilis (AOU 1998). Allozyme (Gavin et al. 1991) and mtDNA (Ball et al. 1988) data indicate a high level of genetic similarity among populations from throughout most of North America; these data suggests that some currently recognized subspecies in the eastern and central U.S. are of doubtful validity; the greatest genetic differentiation occurs among nonmigratory or at least relatively sedentary populations in Mexico and within California. See Whittingham et al. (1992, Auk 109:928-933) for information on differences in song and sexual dimorphism between Cuban and North American populations.

This species is widespread and abundant across North America and northern Central America. The population has declined by roughly 36% since 1970 due to habitat loss and continues to decline slightly.

The breeding range extends from southern Yukon across Canada to Nova Scotia, and south through the United States to Baja California and eastern México, south through Central America to Costa Rica, western Cuba, and the northern Bahamas (Yasukawa and Searcy 2020). This species winters over much of United States, especially in the southern part.

There are many occurrences throughout the range.

The primary threat to this species is the loss of wetland and grassland habitats (Yasukawa and Searcy 2020).