One of the most distinctive birds of Iowa’s grasslands, the Bobolink is a species that has long been familiar to many landowners. Bobolinks typically nest in fairly dense, often somewhat moist grasslands. The species is polygynous with the males forming pair bonds with more than a single female. During the nesting season, the brightly colored males are especially conspicuous as they perch high on plant stems and sing during aerial displays over the grassland. The females are duller colored and more secretive. Once nesting is over, they generally become more secretive until they migrate south in late summer. Bobolinks have one of the longest migrations of any Iowa songbird, wintering on grasslands in southern South America. There they often feed on crops and are commonly persecuted by landowners. The combination of losses on the wintering grounds and destruction of many of the grasslands in Iowa has led to a overall decline in their numbers in Iowa.
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indicates a designated IBA.