Yesterday a band of Boat-tailed Grackle congregated on a section of Wildlife Drive at Edwin B Forsythe NWR. I had seen this bird before, but never in such numbers, or so brazen, posing conspicuously for photographers.
Boat-tailed Grackles. Pointing their bill upward is typical of this type of bird.
Boat-tailed Grackle calling.
Boat-tailed Grackle singing.
Boat-tailed Grackles.
Boat-tailed Grackle foraging. These birds are omnivorous and will steal food from humans.
Their bright yellow eyes make the Boat-tailed Grackle appear fierce. By the way all these photos show male Boat-tailed Grackle and I did not see any female around. The female birds would have been brown. Usually, one male bird would have a cluster of female birds as his harem.
Boat-tailed Grackle.
Boat-tailed Grackle.
neihtn 
You captured the iridescent colors of these birds so masterfully!
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Thank you Helen!
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Such beautiful plumage… I wonder where the ladies were? 🙂 Super images ..
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Maybe the ladies were there also, but I didn’t see them. They are brown and smaller than the male birds.
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Great captures. Their eyes seem to pierce right through you. I just captured a couple of these not too long ago and wasn’t such what they were. Thanks for your help through this post. Now I know they were grackles. 😊
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Thank you Irene! Perhaps the witch’s bird in Snow White is a grackle also?
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Yes, a good possibility! 😄
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What wonderful birds – we don’t have Grackles in Europe. What a great name. They look like members of the crow family?
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Crows belong to the “corvidae” family while Grackles belong to the “Icterid” family. Size wise, Grackles are between a Robin and a Crow.
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That’s interesting. I can’t tell size from photos. I thought they were bigger than that!
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You’ve captured the iridescent plumage of these grackles so very well, along with their yellow eyes! My guess is that you were very patient in waiting to get the light just right for these images, unlike what I do most of the time.
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Thank you Jerry. I spent half an hour photographing them, and could have spent more as they remained near where I was parked. Since there was plenty of sunshine, I was even able to use ISO 100 on some shots.
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Grackles visit briefly here each year, passing through north to south. They do have a lovely sheen. Nice work, Hien.
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Thank you Michael! According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, grackles are year-round residents and don’t migrate. However, during winter I hardly ever see them.
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so it says, like crows grackles gather in large groups for the winter. Maybe we are seeing a visit of a large group of grackles, though my recollection is always happens in the early spring (difficult to tell from winter around here).
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These are great shots, Hien. I first saw these birds when I was 10 or 11, visiting my grandparents over Easter vacation. They lived on an island off Georgia coast. The grackles were so shiny, so brazen, so noisy – I can hear them yelling around the pool to this day. They often went after potato chips people ate around the pool. Your photos display the plumage so well, and also those bright, yellow eyes.
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Thank you Lynn! This is another bird that does not live on the West Coast. I wonder if some can be transplanted there.
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Dangerous words! 😉
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Such pretty pictures 🙂 I like the one that’s calling! 🙂 Looks like he has a lot to say
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Thank you M.B.! That singer was surely belting out some avian aria.
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The iridescent plumage is so lovely in these birds. You’ve captured it beautifully, Hien. I think with many black birds, like robins, the males migrate separately. The males hasten to set up territories before the females arrive, at least in spring prior to breeding.
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Thanks Eliza! Allaboutbirds.org say that these birds do not migrate and are “year-round resident”. However, this was the first time I had seen so many of them in one place.
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Really? That surprises me, as we see them arrive in spring and not in the fall and winter. Maybe some are more locally nomadic?
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