On January 9 2016 Cody Smith wrote:
I saw a report of five COMMON GRACKLES come across on the daily
eBird rare Oregon birds email. ... I am highly skeptical of this
report especially since it involves multiple individuals, took
several days to report, and lacks detail.
Cody (& All),
I share your skepticism but it certainly would be of interest if this
report pans out, as these would be count-week birds for the
Airlie-Albany CBC which was held on January 3rd.
The Santiam Rest Area is a site that normally gets covered as part of
this CBC, so if the birds were present and conspicuous (like grackles
usually are), most likely they would have made it onto the count.
Granted conditions were a little tough (freezing rain) and we were
spread a little thin in that sector, so there's a window of
possibility ... but a small one.
The eBird report does give *some* detail ("studied at close range in
parking lot ... perched next to Brewer's Blackbird ... larger body, long
grackle tail") though not very satisfying and certainly not enough to
distinguish Common from Great-tailed Grackle.
Due to deeply ingrained biases from my rural Midwestern upbringing,
adding grackles to our count-week list would just be one notch up from
adding House Sparrows, but hey, a species is a species ...
Good birding,
Joel
--
Joel Geier
Camp Adair area north of Corvallis
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