Tuesday, February 20, 2001

Grackle decides to nest under family's wing

Friendly 'Bird' nibbles on dog food and ingratiates itself during backyard handywork

My friend Pam Padgett couldn't wait to talk to me. She wanted me to identify a bird and tell her how to get rid of it. The bird was really bothering her. It was black, with a shiny black head. Maybe it would turn out to be a red-winged blackbird. They can make pests of themselves, emptying feeders faster than squirrels. She had not said "birds" but "bird." Whoever heard of a solitary red-wing?
   "I am afraid it might be a crackle," she said. Of course, she meant "grackle," another bird that seldom comes alone. "Does it have a long tail?" I asked. Well, she didn't know ... it just stood on a limb above her and crackled. The minute she came out the door, it would appear. She was afraid her husband, Morris, would be mad about it. The bird seemed to want to go into the garage where Morris kept his nice, clean tools.
   Pam wisely realized that naming an animal makes it seem more like a pet, and she knew she should not name bird, so she decided to just call it 'Bird.'
   The first she knew of it was that it came to the screened part of her back porch and seemed to be asking for something. It hungrily ate a piece of dropped dog food, so she knew what it wanted and brought a little bread, which it also ate.
   Crackling with advice
   Her husband, Morris, has been working in the yard, building a sail line for Pam's son Shane. The bird enjoys watching people work and was soon looking over Morris' shoulder, giving companionable if unsolicited advice. Pam offered the bird some wild birdseed which it accepted and devoured with pleasure. When the garage door was opened, Bird flew in to spend the night.
   When Pam is in the kitchen, the bird perches on a ladder outside the window, carrying on a constant conversation with her. The family has fallen for this bird. It has obviously had previous good relations with people.
   It is against the law to keep a wild animal as a pet. This bird has not been confined by Pam and her family. It shows no signs of injury, flies and gets around well. They realize that any day it may leave and not return. Already it has been away for several days at a time.
   I wanted to see the bird, to identify it. As Pam had said, it was an adult male grackle. I expected it, therefore, to have yellow eyes and be easily identified as a great-tailed grackle. Its eyes were definitely not yellow but brown. Grackles in this area are usually great-tailed and have yellow eyes. Both the Sibley Guide to the Birds, and the third edition of the National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America, say that a brown eye is characteristic of boat-tailed grackles which reside in Florida and along the east coast.
  

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Phyllis Yochem, a Corpus Christi resident, has studied birds in Texas since 1960.

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