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Boat-tailed Grackle (female)
Quiscalus major
28.2495, -80.7417
Field Notes
Description:
When you smell saltwater on the East Coast, it’s time to look out for Boat-tailed Grackles. The glossy blue-black males are hard to miss as they haul their ridiculously long tails around or display from marsh grasses or telephone wires. The rich, dark-brown females are half the size of males and look almost like a different species. Boat-tailed Grackles take advantage of human activity along our increasingly developed coast, scavenging trash and hanging out in busy urban areas away from predators.
Habitat:
Viera Wetlands.
Size & Shape
Boat-tailed Grackles are large, lanky songbirds with rounded crowns, long legs, and fairly long, pointed bills. Males have very long tails that make up almost half their body length and that they typically hold folded in a V-shape, like the keel of a boat.
Color Pattern
Males are glossy black all over. Females are dark brown above and russet below, with a subtle face pattern made up of a pale eyebrow, dark cheek, and pale “mustache” stripe. Eye color ranges from dull brown along the western Gulf Coast to bright yellow along the Atlantic Coast.
Notes:
There were females everywhere and some were with adolescents who were crying wide-mouthed for food
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