Carol DM
Common Grackles are blackbirds that look like they’ve been slightly stretched. They’re taller and longer tailed than a typical blackbird, with a longer, more tapered bill and glossy-iridescent bodies. Grackles walk around lawns and fields on their long legs or gather in noisy groups high in trees, typically evergreens. They eat many crops (notably corn) and nearly anything else as well, including garbage. In flight their long tails trail behind them, sometimes folded down the middle into a shallow V shape.
Cool facts about Grackles:
- Those raggedy figures out in cornfields may be called scare-crows, but grackles are the #1 threat to corn. They eat ripening corn as well as corn sprouts, and their habit of foraging in big flocks means they have a multimillion dollar impact. Some people have tried to reduce their effects by spraying a foul-tasting chemical on corn sprouts or by culling grackles at their roosts.
- Common Grackles are resourceful foragers. They sometimes follow plows to catch invertebrates and mice, wade into water to catch small fish, pick leeches off the legs of turtles, steal worms from American Robins, raid nests, and kill and eat adult birds.
- Grackles have a hard keel on the inside of the upper mandible that they use for sawing open acorns. Typically they score the outside of the narrow end, then bite the acorn open.
- You might see a Common Grackle hunched over on the ground, wings spread, letting ants crawl over its body and feathers. This is called anting, and grackles are frequent practitioners among the many bird species that do it. The ants secrete formic acid, the chemical in their stings, and this may rid the bird of parasites. In addition to ants, grackles have been seen using walnut juice, lemons and limes, marigold blossoms, chokecherries, and mothballs in a similar fashion.
- The oldest recorded Common Grackle was a male, and at least 23 years old when he was killed by a raptor in Minnesota.
These birds from afar look like blackbirds. But when you get closer you see the sheen of the blue head and the brown body. They are striking birds. Amazing what you see up close with these birds. I see them through a zoom lens. Could never get close any other way. I put up a suet feeder in my trees and they seem to like it.
©CarolDM
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Have you heard of a Grackle bird before?
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Yes
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No
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I thought they were blackbirds until I pulled up the story.
Wow, they are so pretty with the blue head. I don’t remember ever seeing one here, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have them. Thanks for sharing, I learned something new!! 😀
Aren’t they pretty? I love these up close. And the blue shines in the sun. They come in flocks and just hang out.
I have never heard of this bird before, but the birds are awesome looking.
They are stunning LaJenna. Have a good day!
Have a great day too my dear friend
Nice post!Beautiful picture birds.
Thank you my dear friend. They are beauties.
I’m hearing about this bird for the first time
They are stunning to see in my backyard.
Beautiful picture dear Carol
Thank you very much.
Wow wow wow! Gorgeous birds, this is more beautiful than a Christmas tree decoration!
How sweet of you to say. At first I hesitated about taking it since I thought they were just blackbirds. Glad I did now.
You have always been the main source of information about the birds for me.
Glad I could be of some importance. And all of the birds I talk about are in my backyard.
You are lucky to have them all in your yard.
Well done! Nice post!
Thank you very much Georgi.
Thanks Carol for the great story.
I appreciate you reading about these birds Robin.