I was awakened this morning by the noise of a large flock of grackles
passing through the trees around my house. They were in a fairly tight
group staying high up near the tree tops. Periodically, 20 to 100 birds
would take off from the back of the flock and land on the trees
immediately ahead of the main group. They proceeded this way through my
woods and on into my neighbors property. They had disappeared from
sight and hearing when I left for work 30 minutes later. I was off from
work early this afternoon and was home around 4:30 when I again heard
the sound of grackles. Looking out the front windows I saw 30 or so
foraging on the ground near my feeders, but the majority (perhaps 500 in
all) were in the woods adjacent, either on the ground or midway up, not
in the tree tops. The grackles on the ground were vigorously churning
up the leaf litter under the trees (leaves were literally flying all
over the place). I was wondering if they were finding invertebrates
when I noticed that a few were flying up to perch on low branches with
something clamped in their bills. These woods are mostly oak and beech.
In the spirit of scientific inquiry, I went out and raked up a 10 x 10
patch of leaves where they had been foraging and found 5 acorns of less
than ½ size. Is this a normal winter/early spring food source for
common grackles?
Dave Larsen
Clifton
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