It’s a sunny day in late October. There’s no breeze to speak of, and most of the leaves have fallen from the trees. A flock of several hundred black birds have landed in the trees in the woods on Owl Acres, and are chattering in a cacophony of sounds. They’re working on the bare twigs, looking for something to eat. A few of the remaining leaves float down beneath their perches. Then, all together, They rise in a cloud, circle and exchange places. They settle into the trees again, and then suddenly they all stop chattering at once. A large piece of farm equipment is going by on the road—is that what has their attention? Satisfied with whatever it was, they resume their raucous conversations. Twenty minutes later, they all pick up and leave. The medium-sized black birds in this flock are mostly common grackles (Quiscalus quiscula), and Owl Acres woods are only a brief stopping point on a long journey south.
Common grackles are very adaptable to a wide variety of habitats and food. They eat insects, spiders, millipedes, earthworms, crayfish, minnows, frogs, lizards, eggs and young of other birds, and small rodents. They’ll also eat seeds, acorns, berries and grain. They usually hunt while walking around on the ground or in shallow water. They are also very fond of crops such as rice, sorghum, wheat and corn. A flock of them, called a “plague” for obvious reasons, can do some serious damage to corn crops in the spring by eating the seed kernels or pulling up the sprouted corn. In the fall they go after the ripening drying corn with their strong sharp beaks. Opening the husks to get at the corn also leaves the ears susceptible to mold. The corn fields around Owl Acres have already been harvested, so the migrating flock we saw was too late to damage the crops.
These grackles are called “common” because they are ubiquitous throughout the United States and Canada from the Atlantic to the Rockies. Native to North America, they thrive in farm fields and shelter belts, forest and marsh edges. They are happy to live near people, so as land is claimed from wetlands and forests for farming and suburbia, the common grackles move in and thrive. Estimates of from 60 to 90 million of them cover the country, and in some places are so numerous that they can cause economic damage to crops. They also annoy householders by driving smaller birds away from bird feeders.
The flock, (or plague) of birds that landed in our woods is made up primarily of common grackles, although their cousins the redwing blackbirds may be hitching a ride with them. The grackles have been summering north of here in Canada most likely. They like each others’ company, so in the spring, they created communities of 10 to 30 breeding pairs. Each pair built a bulky open cup-shaped nest with mud and finer grasses lining the inside. They prefer to place their nests near each other in dense foliage near water, such as at the edge of forests and marshes. Throughout the summer, they raised broods of four or five youngsters and looked after them for several weeks after they left the nest. At the end of their summer sojourn, they continued their communal living as they gathered to come south, and will stay together in flocks through the winter. They’ll head north again in early March. Common grackles that live farther south may not bother to migrate if food is plentiful where they are. The flocks are noisy, with calls variously described as creaking, grating, or as a harsh gurgling squeak.
The male common grackle is about 12 inches long from the tip of his long, pointed beak to the end of his keel-shaped tail. He is all black with iridescent green, blue and purple showing on his head and neck when the sun shines on him. He has long legs, a long body, and yellow eyes. The females are a bit smaller without the iridescent coloring. The birds that visited Owl Acres were all black, but some subspecies come in bronze or purple.
In the US, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 protects grackles and all other native migrating species. However, under this act, grackles may be controlled without a federal permit when they are found, “committing or about to commit depredations upon ornamental or shade trees, agricultural crops, livestock or wildlife, or when concentrated in such numbers and manner to constitute a health hazard or other nuisance.” That leaves a lot of wiggle-room as farmers try to combat the “plague” on their fields.
Although not universally beloved, common grackles positively impact the environment by controlling insects and small rodents. Because they thrive on open land near people and fields, their populations are thought to be increasing as more forests and wetlands are put into production for farming or housing. In addition, scientists predict that they will adapt splendidly to a warming climate and will therefore increase in numbers as the temperatures rise.
When the plague of blackbirds landed in the woods, I was reminded of that childhood nursery rhyme “Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye; four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie. When the pie was opened, the birds began to sing; wasn’t that a dainty dish to set before the king.” My sisters and I used to sing it as we played in the yard. We loved the second half of it: “The king was in his counting-house counting out his money; the queen was in the parlor eating bread and honey. The maid was in the garden hanging out the clothes when down came a blackbird and pecked off her nose.” It made blackbirds like common grackles just a bit scary.
Later that same autumn morning, a smaller flock of grackles stopped briefly on Owl Acres. We’ll probably see a few more “plagues” before they’ve all gone south.
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1 comment
They can be SO loud!!!!