Common Grackles ; male above, female below.
For the past week or so we Ruthven has been frequented by large flocks of birds that will eat fruit in the Fall: American Robins, Waxwings, Common Grackles, European Starlings, and blackbirds, both Red-winged and Rusty. Often they travel in large flocks and descend en masse to strip areas bare of every berry/fruit they can find.
Today I watched as a marauding flock of Common Grackles “hit” the Gray Dogwood shrubs. Within minutes almost every little white berry in a stand of shrubs was gone and the flock, sounding like a freight train, ascended and headed for the next patch. It was noticeable, as I walked around to the net lanes, how few berries were left. When the fruit is all gone, the birds will go too. Not much longer now.
Banded 74:
2 Downy Woodpeckers
1 Black-capped Chickadee
1 Brown Creeper
1 Golden-crowned Kinglet
8 Ruby-crowned Kinglets
3 Hermit thrushes
1 American Robin
2 Cedar Waxwings
3 Yellow-rumped Warblers
1 Fox Sparrow
1 Song Sparrow
2 Swamp Sparrows
12 White-throated Sparrows
9 Dark-eyed Juncos
14 Common Grackles
5 Purple finches
8 American Goldfinches
ET’s: 47 spp.
Some of the “Young Ornithologists” at Fern Hill chatting between net checks. The net lanes are in the scrub just beyond them -J. Chard
Caleb and ShariAnn were out this morning and opened the Bagger (River Flat) nets. They banded 16 birds:
2 Black-capped Chickadees
3 Golden-crowned Kinglets
4 Ruby-crowned Kinglets
2 Hermit Thrushes
2 Song Sparrows
1 Swamp Sparrow
2 White-throated Sparrows
Fern Hill Schoo;:
Rain showers throughout the first half of the morning kept things slow at Fern Hill. Once the rain stopped we managed to catch 17 birds. Nine were new birds banded and eight were recaptures.
Banded: 9
1 Downy Woodpecker
2 Blue Jays
3 Black-capped Chickadees
1 Ruby-crowned Kinglet
2 American Robins
ET’s: 27 spp.
Photos:
Male Downy Woodpecker – common at the feeders (and in the forest) at Fern Hill. -J. Chard
Another common feeder bird: White-breasted Nuthatch. -J. Chard
A young Blue Jay. GO JAYS!!! -J. Chard
This Blue Jay has new central rectrices (tail feathers) – note the pronounced difference in colour. -J. Chard
Janice
Your description of the grackles’ berry-eating frenzy reminds me of a time from my youth. I grew up in central New Jersey at a time when the dominant woody plant was the Bayberry. Every fall, ENORMOUS flocks (tens of thousands of birds) of Tree swallows would descend like feathery tornados to devour the berries. During the week or two that they were present, every telephone wire in town was completely covered with birds. They turned black roofs white and white roofs black. They filled the swimming pools with Bayberry seeds and there were so many seeds on the roads that we would “roller skate” with our shoes. The Bayberry bushes have long been replaced by succession, but I’d bet (unhappily) that even in places where there are lots of Bayberrys, the flocks that show up today pale in comparison with the ones we enjoyed 40 years ago.