A few years ago I built what my wife and I call "the pond". It's nothing more than a very shallow concrete pool (2-3 inches deep) and about 8 square feet. It has a constant source of fresh water on one end and a "spillway" on the other. I built it so that the baby Gambel's Quail would not be killed in the pans of water that we used to water the wildlife. But now, since it is one of the few sources of flowing water in the neighborhood, we find all manner of new mammals, birds, and reptiles are showing up. One of the most entertaining is the Great-Tailed Grackle. Every day there are 4-5 pairs of them with their repertoire of calls and their mating and fighting antics. They love to take pieces of bread over to the pond and dunk them before eating. They also do this with pieces of dry dog food. The males are gorgeous and almost as large as the roadrunners that show up several times each day. What magnificent and beautiful clowns they are!
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The entertaining Great-Tailed Grackle! (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter PumaMan
- Start date
We never had them before I put in "the pond". Most articles I've read stated that they won't be found far from a permanent water source.
ETA: The males are LARGE and LOUD! Sometimes they make such a racket that it scares all the other birds at the feeder. And the males parade around, all puffed up, with their beaks pointing straight up - quite a sight.
ETA: The males are LARGE and LOUD! Sometimes they make such a racket that it scares all the other birds at the feeder. And the males parade around, all puffed up, with their beaks pointing straight up - quite a sight.
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smallonion
Guest
I love grackles - but have you ever seen a baby grackle!? They are hilarious - and look so endearing in a cute/ugly kind of way. I do volunteer work at a wildlife rehab, and we have many baby birds at the moment, including a few grackles.They are SUCH enthusiastic beggars for food, to say the least!
Good for you. I admire that.
I'm fond of grackles - I've only had limited observations of the boat-tailed ones - they have a lot of character and do make a great variety of sounds. I've enjoyed your descriptions of them.
Sounds like a wonderful water feature in your yard - what a great way to increase the wildlife you get to see.
Sounds like a wonderful water feature in your yard - what a great way to increase the wildlife you get to see.
The "pond" is nothing special--I made it from concrete, about 2 ft by 3 ft, very shallow (water can get no deeper than about 2 inches), a spillway at one end and a water line hooked up the the other end. The runoff makes a "stream" that runs about 100 feet before it evaporates or percolates into the ground. The javelina like to lie in the water during the summer. The water runs at a trickle all year round, which puts a little dent in my water bill. Before I built the "pond" we used to set out several deep water-filled pans for the birds and the other desert critters. We have many, many Gambel's Quail and they start having broods of little ones (10-15) about the middle of April and this continues till Autumn. Even thought I put rocks in the pans so the little baby quail could get out, I still would find a drowned one at least once per week. So, I put in the "pond" which is shallow enough for them to get in and get out.
Standing/flowing water is very rare here in the Sonoran Desert so it attracts not only birds but frogs, lizards, rabbits, javelinas coyotes, squirrels, chipmunks, a bobcat or two, etc. And grackles of course!
BTW, are you living permanently in China? How do you like it there? I would love to travel there.
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Killdeer_Chick
Ka-yute!
I was wondering if any of the quail get taken by the grackles or if any of the grackles have been seen attacking the adults? I know they often eat killdeer chicks and other babies and eggs just like crows do and I worry about my killdeer at my local lake. We have probably over 100 great-tailed grackles living there in one spot. So far, the worst behavior I've seen from them is stealing food from the killdeer, but that's because people feed the grackles a lot and they don't feel the need to "hunt".
If I wasn't in fear of my precious killdeer chicks (or killdeer adults as they have been known to kill them), I wouldn't mind a few grackles around. 100 or so, I don't know.
If I wasn't in fear of my precious killdeer chicks (or killdeer adults as they have been known to kill them), I wouldn't mind a few grackles around. 100 or so, I don't know.
Never seen the grackles mess with any of the other birds. In fact, the quail, the doves, and the dozens of other species seem to coexist just fine together on the ground. We only have about 5 or 6 pairs. They nest high in the neighbor's trees, which are quite a bit taller than my trees.
Now, the road runners will try to pick off the smaller birds.
Now, the road runners will try to pick off the smaller birds.
Birdingcraft
Well-known member
That sounds like an awesome backyard. It's nice to see someone post about the antics of grackles. In much of their range, Great-tailed Grackles (including here in Costa Rica) are ignored as trash birds because they are so common but they really are fascinating birds to watch- intelligent, interesting behaviors, crazy vocalizations, and the plumage of male birds is pretty impressive.
Killdeer_Chick
Ka-yute!
That's pretty cool. I would love to see quail every day, especially the babies.
5 or 6 pairs doesn't sound too bad. When I first started watching the killdeer at my local lake, I think we had about that many great-tails over a quarter mile area and all seemed perfectly fine. I am just nervous about their unpredictability. They seem to get along fine with the other birds for a long time, then, all of a sudden, they start to harass or attack one that they've been fine with for months. Today, I think I saw a few peck and fly close to some killdeer on the shore, but it may not have been to intentionally harm them, but to get to some food people left for the ducks.
I counted 70 grackles at my local lake and that doesn't count those that live in people's yards and other places that I can't access.
Yeah, you're right about roadrunners, they are bird-eaters also.
It's pretty much the same here -- they're considered "parking lot" birds. The noises they make are downright weird and funny sometimes. And the males, when mating, are very interesting to watch.
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