Those darn common Grackles!

 

Grand Harbor golfers will know the Grackles – they lie in wait on the fifth and fourteenth tees boxes, on the Harbor course, waiting for you to exit your cart so they may help themselves!  Grackles will eat most anything and have a hard keel on the inside of the upper mandible that they use for sawing open acorns or perhaps potato chip bags.  They score the package to open and then feast.  They also feed on insects, spiders, frogs, eggs and young of other birds and small rodents.  Grackles are also the number 1 threat to corn farmers by eating ripening corn as well as corn sprouts.  They are easily mistaken for crows as they are dark in color and part of the family of Blackbirds and Orioles.  However, the Grackles show a blue iridescent sheen when viewed from certain angles.

The females are brown in color and look very different from the males.  The males bond together in flocks to forage for food, while the females build the nests and rear the young.  The common Grackles have striking yellow eyes which make them stand out from all other black colored birds.

Females choose the nest site typically high in a coniferous tree in a small colony of perhaps 10 – 30 pairs.  The nest is a bulky cup made of twigs, leaves and grasses along with bits of paper, string, cloth or other materials.  The female reinforces the nest with mud then lines it with fine grasses.  The finished nest is 6-9 inches across with a depth of 3-6 inches.  There can be from 1-7 eggs with two broods a year.  The incubation period is 11-15 days with the nesting period 10-17 days.  Eggs are light blue, gray white or dark brown usually spotted with brown.  When born the babies are blind and naked weighing just under a quarter ounce with sparse brownish down.