Great-tailed Grackles

Ah, yes, another species found not only in SE Colorado but throughout much of that state. Most Great-tailed Grackles do migrate south for the winter from Colorado. The smaller brown bird on the left is a female. I found these in Socorro, New Mexico which is in the south central part of the state (and is the nearest town with motels near the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge). It is also where I am stuck as the clutch on my car is going out. I need to drive it into Albuquerque tomorrow to get a new clutch and I didn't want to push my luck by driving it today. So my birding today was limited to where I could walk and that was just a city park.

In addition to the grackles I did see at least 200 American Crows, many in the park but lots flying all around the area. I would have to rate them as abundant not only in this town but in the Bosque del Apache NWR where I saw hundreds of them yesterday. This species appears to be doing quite well in New Mexico. Maybe the West Nile virus hasn't been as hard on them here as in Colorado (a study published this year found that 86% of the corvids they tested in Colo in 2003 were positive for West Nile). SeEtta

Migrating Great-tailed Grackles

This video is of a relatively small migrating flock of Great-tailed Grackles moving through SE Colo. There were only about 150 in this flock but when they all fly into one cottonwood tree, they make quite a racket. This is not nearly as impressive as the flock of over 300 Great-tailed Grackles I found in Lamar as they were concentrated into a small area also.

Of course this species is well known for making a racket with the shrieks, rattles and sounds of breaking sticks they make. I took this video clip with my digital still camera, that has the capacity for short video recordings, so the picture quality is not great but the sound came out pretty good. And I jerked the camera around as I tried to keep up with the ever-moving grackles as they hopped around the tree branches. SeEtta