From Opus

Quiscalus major

Male. Photo by David Roach

Female. Photo by: Gary Clark
Location: Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA

[edit] Identification

Males 16-17" (41-43 cm)
Females 12-13" (30-33 cm)

Tail very long and keel-shaped

[edit] Male

• Black
• Iridescent blue on back and breast
• Yellow or brown eyes

[edit] Female

• Smaller
• Brown with paler breast

[edit] Similar species

Common Grackle smaller; female lacks paler breast.

Very similar to Great-tailed Grackle

• Averages shorter-tailed
• Rounder headed
• Relatively long legs
• Long slender bill
• Distinctive voice
• Eye color differs
  • White eye on Atlantic coast
  • Brown eye on Gulf coast

[edit] Distribution

Resident along coasts from New Jersey south and west to Louisiana; also inland in peninsular Florida. Rare but regular breeder north along coast to Massachusetts. Only one accepted inland record at Braddock Bay Bird Observatory in New York.

[edit] Taxonomy

Polytypic. Consists of two subspecies.

This species and its close relative the Great-tailed Grackle were thought to be a single species until it was found that both nest in southwestern Louisiana without interbreeding.

[edit] Habitat

Marshes along the coast; in Florida, also on farmlands.

[edit] Behaviour

[edit] Food

Mostly insects and plant matter. Lesser quantities of aquatic invertebrates and reptiles or amphibians

[edit] Nesting

3 or 4 pale blue eggs, spotted and scrawled with brown and purple, in a bulky cup of grass, mud, and decayed vegetation placed from 2 to 10' (60 cm to 3 m) up in marsh grass or bushes.

[edit] Vocalisation

Harsh jeeb-jeeb-jeeb-jeeb, unlike the whistles and clucks of the Great-tailed Grackle.

[edit] External Links