Boat-tailed Grackles – Absolute Opportunists!
Unless you live west of the Rockies, you probably have had some experience with Common Grackles. If you have feeders, you know they can arrive in a flock and eat everything in sight. And they can come every single day. If you walk through your favorite tree-filled neighborhood or park in fall, you might experience large flocks roosting in trees calling out to each other. If you live in Texas and Oklahoma, you probably have Great-tailed Grackles which ……….. I hate to use this word when describing a bird ……… but, in my observation, flocks of Great-tailed Grackles are just plain obnoxious *
We had quite the experience at lunch. We were at Pinky’s on the Beach in Folly Beach, which is not far from Charleston, SC. A great place for lunch – right on the beach with a wonderful view of the ocean. The food is good – try their fried calamari – best we ever had!
But along with us and all the folks at the neighboring tables was a flock of mostly female Boat-tailed Grackles – related to Common and Great-tailed Grackles. Boat-tailed Grackles can be found along the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic coasts, and throughout the state of Florida. When I took this photo to the left, we were just about finished eating, and the tables were mostly occupied. When we sat down about 30 minutes earlier, only a few tables had people sitting at them. And that is when the grackles were at their boldest. For several minutes, we all thought we had time-travelled and were part of the cast in the filming of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds! Cleon just about lost his cap several times and one grackle actually tried to steal a fried something from the plate of a very startled man who was sitting right there! Talk about bold! The grackles sat on all the chairs, walked over all the tables, and whooshed all over under the slatted ceiling. Most of the time, they were within inches of all of our heads. Two or three males and more than a dozen females.
This cannot be the best diet for grackles, but they sure looked healthy!
Right next to Pinky’s was a pier that jutted quite a way out into the ocean and it was filled with fishermen, walkers, and sitters on the many benches. No dogs allowed but once again, Boat-tailed Grackles everywhere. The pier had several large areas covered with roofs and on the roofs were flocks of pigeons enjoying roosting in the sunshine on this cool day. There were very nice benches under these roofs that were always in the shade. Quite comfortable. But as you can imagine, the rafters of all these roofs also made comfortable roosting places for these pigeons. Steps were taken to protect human sitters from bird droppings – and this was an excellent idea. Sharp metal stakes were placed about 2-3 inches apart on all the rafters and not one pigeon was roosting. But these stakes did not deter these grackles for one moment! No pesky pigeons for them to tussle with! Absolute opportunists!
*If you have trouble with grackles or any of the black birds in your neighborhood or yard, here is a link to a different part of my website with some suggestions. These suggestions have been tried either by myself or my birding friends who have been plagued with black birds and they will work. But you do need to allow them time to work and have patience. Discouraging Black Birds