The Tricolored Blackbird is North America’s most colonial landbird. Found almost exclusively in California, its breeding colonies often teem with more than 50,000 birds, sometimes all settled into a single 10-acre field or wetland to raise their young. Audubon California is working to help increase the bird's numbers through our work with NRCS. Here are some spots to see this beauty in action:

• Jacumba Lake– Jacumba, San Diego County

Jacumba Lake is located on Old Highway 80. This historic spring was used by the native people who lived in the area hundreds of years ago for water and heat. The spring is an important area for Tricolored Blackbirds and other wildlife.

• Audubon Kern River Preserve –Kern River Valley, Kern County

Visit our Preserve in beautiful Kern River Valley.

• Delevan National Wildlife Refuge – Maxwell, Colusa County

The Wildlife Refuge is one of six refuges in the Sacramento Refuge Complex in the Sacramento Valley of north-central California. It is 5,797-acres 80 miles north of Sacramento and consists of over 4,500 acres of intensively managed wetlands and 1,200 acres of uplands, a very rare sight in wetland-depleted California.

• Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area –Davis, Yolo County

Located in the heart of the Pacific Flyway, Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area's more than 15,830 acres is part wildlife area, part outdoor education experience, and part birders' paradise all in one.

• Merced National Wildlife Refuge – Los Banos, Merced County

Established in 1951 under the Lea Act to attract wintering waterfowl from adjacent farmland where their foraging was causing crop damage. Local farmers, under agreements with the Refuge, oversee the ground preparation, seeding, and irrigation of the croplands that comprise this Refuge. Tricolored Blackbirds breed in colonies of over 25,000 pairs here.

• Kern National Wildlife Refuge – Lost Hills, Kern County

This Refuge consists of 11,249-acres of natural desert uplands, a relict riparian corridor, and developed marsh.

For more information on Tricolored Blackbirds, please visit our website.