Incubation takes 10 days to two weeks. Both parents feed insects to the hatchlings, and the young leave the nest after about two weeks. In the Northeast, most redwing females raise one brood per year, renesting if a predator destroys an early clutch. Nest predators include crows, marsh wrens, raccoons and minks. In winter, red-winged blackbirds often feed alongside grackles, cowbirds, starlings and robins.
Redwings usually fly between food sources in long, strung-out flocks.
At night they roost communally, males grouped separately from females. Most redwings winter in the southeastern United States, with huge concentrations in the lower Mississippi Valley. About 40 percent of adult redwings perish each year. The average life span is two to four years. Meadowlarks live in pastures, hayfields, fallow fields, and stripmines that have been replanted to grass.