Stink Eye…by Brad Marks

Brad is continuing to hold down the Intrigued HQ back home while we are officially on our way back from or winter migration (much to the chagrin of our nefarious legal department). Honestly, I am not sure it was a true “migration” in the sense the cold weather followed us nearly the entire way and now, still days from home, we are once again in freezing temps. I suspect Linda will quickly put an end to any future discussion of going back to Arizona in the Winter. The good news is there is plenty of new birds in the tin for future posts. I am also excited about getting back so I can officially kick off the ’24 running season – legs getting lazy. While we calculate the best timeframe to slip back in IL, Brad is going to take us along on another of his Colorado adventures.

Take it away Brad…

Normally these pages are filled with rare, exotic, or extremely colorful birds.  This time I decided to focus (pun intended) on a bird we probably all overlook.  You’ve probably seen them hopping around everywhere you go, but like me, you probably just ignore them. 

Jan and I had just left the lofty Rockies (above 9,000 feet) and the freezing temps (check out that story here) for the rather warm plains of eastern Colorado (6,000 feet and nearly 80F) and the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge (RFNWR).  Did you catch the irony in the name?  Usually the word “Rocky” conjures up images of snow-covered peaks soaring towards the stratosphere.  The word “rocky” isn’t usually associated with the word “flat”.  But that’s just what the organizers decided to do for this particular location.  Sort of like “jumbo shrimp” or “military intelligence”, “Rocky Flats” seems to be an oxymoron itself.

On the same day we encountered the Western Meadowlark (link here), this sinister looking character was hanging around the parking lot.

If that look hasn’t scared you, hit the jump to read more about this “commoner”.

It’s a Common Grackle (Quiscalus quiscula).  No, it’s not a +1 for us, at least not based on this trip.  It wasn’t even the first time I had seen one this year, or even this vacation.  But it is the first time I thought to actually take photos of a Grackle.  As Brian also tells me, “No photo, didn’t happen.”  Intrigued corporate should print up employee T-shirts with that saying.

Normally they hang around to impress a mate or protect a food supply.  But this Grackle didn’t seem interested in either of those things.  It kept looking past me as if I wasn’t even there.  I’m not sure it could decide whether to look past me, or to keep its eye on a snack it was chasing.

I know, I know, sometimes manners don’t quite translate to the animal kingdom from the human world.  Maybe that’s for the best based on recent global events.  I did catch this one working on a bug it had just captured.

After a few hops, it was looking for more.  Is that a tasty bug to eat?  At a casual glance, a Grackle appears to be black; it’s only a trick of the light.  Blackbirds and Grackle are related, but color varies quite a bit.  Grackle are really a rainbow of color, but at the darker end of the color spectrum.  Males are very colorful.  Sometimes they are purple headed morphing into blue and green before fading off to grey or dark grey on their tail.  The one I spotted was a female, usually on the less colorful end of the scale.

After swallowing another bug, this Grackle kept looking behind me.  When I turned around, I saw a fluffball under the back of our car, hiding in the shade.  Ah, the reason for the intense stare.

It took me quite a while to get the camera settings correct for shooting a dark object, in the shadows under my car with the bright sun lighting up everything else.  I’m thankful for Lightroom and its ability to work with varying brightness, contrast, etc.  (No consideration was received for mentioning Adobe products.  However, if Adobe wanted to provide sponsorship for Wildlife Intrigued, please contact the Intrigued Legal Department.)

Somewhere, a parent must have made a noise I couldn’t hear because this yet-to-be-identified little brown jobber (LBJ) came running out from under my car. 

It ran like a roadrunner across the gravel parking lot to the safety of the tall grasses.  Then I figured out it must have been a juvenile Grackle that mom had hidden under the car.  There was a Swainson’s Hawk flying overhead after all, so I understood why it was hiding.

This is one of the few non-blurred photos I have of it.  I still had the camera set up for shadows and wasn’t quite prepared for the bright, slightly over-exposed, dash across the rocks.  I had also squatted down as low as I could get on the gravel.  Unfortunately, squatting hindered my ability to smoothly pan the camera with the running bird.  The youngling quickly disappeared into the grass near the adult Grackle.

Wait. What!?  You are still here?  I’m still getting the stink eye.

Uh-oh, now I lost Jan.  Oh, I see her, partway down the trail heading into the tall grass.  Better go catch up.

Thank you for reading.  If you want to see more Grackle photos, please visit here.

Credits:

Thanks again to Jan for proofreading and editing.  More of her photos are coming in a future story.