When I lived in the Bay Area before 2000, a Great-tailed Grackle was a
rarity...then I returned for overseas in 2005 and they had move din and
where seen in ones or pairs...they were Known to be breeding in
Monterey...now they are seen in Jackson County, meanwhile 350 miles
south...here is a report from today from San Francisco: "
- Eddie Bartley <eddie@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> <eddie@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Today at 3:00 PM
To
- SFBirds@xxxxxxxxx
Message body
Jan. 12, 3-4 PM, Lake Merced concrete bridge: perhaps the pressure drop,
songbirds were mostly silent during walk when suddenly, nearly all of the
ducks & gulls and even coots lifted from the lake. We got on the PEREGRINE
FALCON just as it jetted off to the west then working through the sky
immediately noticed some GREAT-TAILED GRACKLE behavior neither Noreen or I
could recall in California. A discrete tribe of grackles were in a tizzy of
flight 50-75 feet over the bridge area, two full circles, long enough for
us to count: “at least 20, no, more than 25, 28!”, we settled on 28. The
CBC habit is hard to break. About 4 adult males and the rest approximately
split between shorter-tailed sub-adult males and bronze colored females.
Then they headed northwest and we lost them. Weird. Have these birds been
present somewhere along the reeds of the lake all winter or is this some
displaced tribe on the move to the promised land? By far the largest group
we’ve ever noticed in SF. Wonder where they are now."
Once they get into the Willamette Valley they will dominate our marshes as
Yellowp-headed Blackbirds do east of the Cascade
I first saw GT Grackles in Las Cruces back in the 1980s when they were
still a southwestern species...but they have moved steadily northwestward
since then. They do really well in man-altered habitat...so here they
come. .
Harry Fuller
author of: *San Francisco's Natural History: Sand Dunes to Streetcars:*
https://ecowise.wordpress.com/2017/04/20/sfnh/
author of *Great Gray Owls of CA-OR-WA*:
https://ecowise.wordpress.com/2015/05/08/the-great-gray-owl-book/
author of *Freeway Birding*: *freewaybirding.com
<http://freewaybirding.com>*
birding website: http://www.towhee.net
my birding blog: atowhee.wordpress.com
