Common Grackle
The Common Grackle (Quiscalus quiscula) is a large, gregarious blackbird in the family Icteridae. This family consist of 105 new world species in 30 genera throughout North and South America. They include both year around residents as well as long-distance migrants, such as the Bobolink with one of the longest migration routes. The Bobolink’s route starts in the Northeastern U.S., flying out over the Atlantic to its South American wintering grounds. Icteridaes have sharply pointed beaks which they use with great versatility, from prying bark off of trees in search of insects to stabbing fruit from trees and bushes. Many of these birds, including the Common Grackle, are also quite intelligent and display problem solving skills – as evidenced by their continued ability to circumvent my attempts to keep their flocks from emptying my bird feeders.
The Common Grackle is a medium sized blackbird (although it looks really big when it comes to your feeder) — larger than a red-winged blackbird, but much smaller than a crow. It is the smallest of the three Grackle species found in the U.S., the other two being the Boat-tailed Grackle and the Great-tailed Grackle. The Common Grackle range extends throughout most of the U.S., but stops short of Arizona, Nevada, most of Utah and Idaho, and the Pacific Coast states. While its breeding range extends north into the Canadian provinces except for British Columbia, during the winter it retreats from Canada, the Rockies, the Northern Great Plains and Great Lake states into the eastern half of the United States.
What it looks like
The Common Grackle is an all-black bird with iridescent plumage showing a metallic sheen, yellow eye, long bill, and long, keel-shaped tail. The head, neck, and breast have a glossy purplish-blue or bluish-green sheen. Those found during breeding season east of the Appalachians show a glossy purple coloration, while those throughout the rest of the range have a glossy head with a more brassy-bronze body. Females are similar, but slightly smaller overall and generally less glossy. Juveniles are dull brown with brown eyes.
Similar species
Boat-tailed and Great-tailed Grackle
Both the Boat-tailed Grackle (Quiscalus major), pictured here, and the Great-tailed Grackle (Quiscalus mexicanus) are larger, with larger tails and a less metallic sheen. The Boat-tailed Grackle is found along the Atlantic Coast from Long Island south, throughout Florida, and along the Gulf Coast into Texas. Inland birds are unlikely to be Boat-tailed Grackles. Great-tailed Grackles are found in the Central and Southern Great Plains west to Southern California and throughout Mexico and Central America. Where the range overlaps with the Common Grackle, look for the Great-tailed Grackle,s much larger tail that lacks the keel shape and the lack of any greenish tint.
Brewers Blackbird
The Brewer’s Blackbird (Euphagus cyanocephalus) male also sports a yellow eye, shows violet iridescence on head and and neck, and blue-green body iridescence, but it much smaller than the Common Grackle with a “normal” sized tail. The female Brewer’s Blackbird has a dark eye and is grayish brown with a hint of light violet to the head and neck along with a faint metallic greenish sheen on the rest of the body. This picture was taken in May 2013 of a male Brewer’s Blackbird raiding leftovers at the outdoor eating area at Phil’s Fish Market in Moss Landing, California. Great place for fresh seafood, famous for their Cioppino.
Grackles and feeders
Icterids are notorious for being intelligent birds, and Common Grackles are no exception. They are gregarious and great communicators. During the spring, a grackle or two will find my feeder, and within a very short time I could have 20 or 30, emptying it within half an hour. Worse yet, grackles either deter or chase off other species from visiting. I would much rather watch bluebirds, nuthatches, or woodpeckers at my feeder compared to the grackles.
So I experimented with several feeders which I hoped would exclude grackles. I tried a large sunflower feeder with a cage around the feeding ports. This frustrated the grackles – for about two hours until one figured out how it could position itself just right to extend its neck through the cage and use its long bill to reach the sunflower seeds. Much to my chagrin, soon every grackle that came into the yard figured out the secret, sending me back to the drawing board.
I eventually landed on a cage from Wild Birds Unlimited. It was 10” in diameter with 2” openings. The openings were small enough to keep out the grackles, but not so small as to exclude bluebirds and other feeder species. At first I was disappointed that the Red-bellied Woodpecker was unable to access the bird food. After about two weeks, though, it eventually figured out how to position itself just so, extend its head and neck as far as possible toward the food ports, and with a flick of its long tongue extract a morsel from the feeder.
That’s it for this week. Next week’s bird is the Sanderling.
If you missed last week’s bird, click here to read about the Pine Grosbeak.