STATUS: Common.
HABITAT: Inhabits freshwater marshes of cattails, bulrushes, and reeds, generally over water. Winters in open cultivated fields, pastures, and marshes.
SPECIAL HABITAT REQUIREMENTS: Marshy vegetation.
NEST: Generally nests in colonies. Builds a woven basketlike cup nest of marsh vegetation lined with fine grass and attaches it to reeds and cattails 1 to 3 feet above water or sometimes in willows in wet areas.
FOOD: Eats both vegetable and animal material gleaned from the ground, mostly vegetative material, which includes seeds and leaves of grasses and forbs, and grain crops.
REFERENCES: Beal 1900, Forbush and May 1955, Lowe and Mansell 1983, Willson 1966.