GreYs and BloaTs

Yikes, looked at the calendar and startled myself. How did we get to the last page so quick!! Fortunately, we have a few more weeks before we call it a wrap and put a bow on our 17th year of blogging here at Intrigued. Talk about warp speed, now those years have really flown by. Weeks that will be spent getting ready for the big end of the year staff extravaganza (fingers crossed no repeat of the ambulance needed last year), finishing up the gifts for our family get togethers and eagerly getting packed to head south. These sub-zero windchill temps as of late are for the birds ha. Oh, and in between those activities trying to get some birding to close out the Average Year (link here). That page needs to be updated, but checked off number 315 with a Snowy Owl this afternoon. Ron is having a down year, but Brad has really kicked it in on his annual checks!

Most important is to make sure we continue to keep our readers entertained as they go about their own December agendas. For today, we are going to feature a feathered friend that always causes me to stop and pull out my mental cheat sheet.

Boat-Tailed Grackle found at Sweetwater Wetlands Park in Gainesville, FL in April 2023

Hit the jump to read more about this long tailed prismatic.

I can already feel the warmth coming off these pictures. These come courtesy of the pleasant temperatures in Gainesville, FL back in April of 2023. Side note, before the crescendo of comments about me getting my butt in gear on the photo backlog. Brad can attest I am working really, really hard to get some of the bigger trips processed. This April 2023 trip is completed and the Arizona trip last January will be done before the end of the weekend. I’d pat myself on the back, but I still have last April’s Texas trip to get through and a September Colorado outing taunting me on a daily basis – Time to put on the puppy eyes and go ask Linda for an intern…again.

Sorry, I digress. Back to April 2023.

Boat-Tailed Grackle found at Sweetwater Wetlands Park in Gainesville, FL in April 2023

I’ve previously covered what an incredible place the Sweetwater Wetlands Park is in Gainesville. I highly recommend stopping in and checking it out if you happen to be in the area – assuming my Florida based friends are already very familiar with it. This place is target rich for birds, Snakes (don’t tell Linda) and some of the biggest Alligators I’ve encountered. With all those subjects, you might find yourself overlooking some of the more “common” birds like the Grackle.

Boat-Tailed Grackle found at Sweetwater Wetlands Park in Gainesville, FL in April 2023

Admittedly, they can be a rather annoyingly loud bunch – especially those ones more commonly seen along the Rio Grande Valley. 9.999% of the time, you check the tail on those Texas sightings and assume they are of the Great-Tailed variety (link here). Those little wussy tails of the Common Grackle can be easily sorted out should one of those stray down there.

Boat-Tailed Grackle found at Sweetwater Wetlands Park in Gainesville, FL in April 2023

Things get a bit more difficult as you move up and around the Gulf Coast to the east. I know for a fact you can run into a situation around Galveston Island (East Beach) and according to the Cornell’s region maps there starts to be a definite overlap with another species as you make your way through Louisiana. Continuing east, the Great-Tailed sightings subside and the species you are looking at here takes over – the Boat-Tailed Grackle. At first glance I find it extremely easy to get the Great-Tailed and the Boat-Tailed confused. Again, the Common Grackles are in the southeast as well, but I assume that puny tailed variety gets laughed out of the area when the big tails enter the room.

Boat-Tailed Grackle found at Sweetwater Wetlands Park in Gainesville, FL in April 2023

The good news is there is a rather easy way to tell them apart if you can find an angle that allows light to shine on them – particularly the face. The males of both species will shimmer beautifully in the light so no advantage there (note, the females have a brown wash). The key to the identification is in the eyes. Remember that mental checklist I referenced earlier…well, it’s “GreYs and BloaTs”. As they say, learn it, live it, love it. I happen to only use the “e” version of grey, but it works with the boring “a” usage as well. Now to decipher the key. It is short for [Gre]ats [Y]ellow, [Bl]ack for B[oat-T]ails. Simple as that. The Great-Tailed variety, males and females) have a yellow eye and the Boat-Tails (males and females) have a dark eye.

Granted, this is usually only an issue when you are in an overlapping region, but it wouldn’t help to at least check-off any rarity opportunities outside those areas. All I got for you today folks, just wanted to show off some shimmering beauties and pass on a quick field ID tip that you may not be aware of.

Grab a tasty holiday beverage, flip on the Christmas tree and plop on that elf hat while you sit back and relax. Hell, why not listen to Shimmer from one of my favorite bands of all time – Fuel (link here) in honor of today’s featured feathered friend while you are at it.

38 thoughts on “GreYs and BloaTs”

  1. Dreaming of your winter break already? Don’t blame you when the weather’s sh*t. We’ve got gale force winds and rain this weekend, end of May and the Corfu trip can’t come soon enough!
    Not sure on this feathered ‘delight’. Yeah pretty sheen but looks awfully like a crow.
    Always surprised at the length of your photo queue. I’m always excited to see my results they are usually processed in days of the trip. Then again I cull mercilessly! Both in the field then at home, hundreds of shots are turned into a mere handful.

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    1. I am! We had a couple of really nice days here, but quickly heading down into the teens (F) by end of the week. Actually kind of prefer the wickedly cold days now as these warm days make me heartsick I can’t go out for a run thanks to this torn up ankle. I can’t wait to see your finds from your next Corfu trip. These Grackles definitely look like Crows, especially if the sun isn’t shining on them. They are actually in a different family, but beyond the nonstop trash talking, and sunlight shimmer, they could easily pass for a murder. I rarely cull in the field – probably should make that definitive and say never. There are so many subtle regional differences or surprise finds I discover when I give the thorough review back home in the digital darkroom. It also gives me a formal way to check/update the eBird lists I submit from the field. I do delete crap loads of shots, but when you have the opportunity to bird in the best places in the US you tend to take a loooot of shots. I do have to start being more judicious about my shots of the more common birds, I don’t need to rifle through 30 shots of a Crow or Titmouse anymore, but I keep getting caught up in the moment while out in the field. We’ll see how the upcoming Texas trip goes.

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      1. Totally get where you’re coming from B. I don’t even actually take huge numbers of shots in the field. At a race meeting it could be a few hundred, mainly because of burst mode. A lull in action and I will be culling the cr*p, out of focus, not quite sharp enough, not in the right spot etc. The same goes for birding and butterflies. I might end up with 50 tops then these will be processed and again any I think are just so-so get the chop.
        In recent weeks I’ve been going through my files on the pc (no cloud storage) and have deleted over a 1,000 images that I no longer feel are worth keeping, duplicates, triplicates of the same shot, old shots where I now have better ones, those I will never use on social media. I find it quite meditative.
        Anyway each to there own and as you say you’re in the best birding spots and you don’t want to miss a thing.

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        1. I definitely need to get better at resisting the 100 shots of the same damn thing and trust my execution better before moving on. I usually never look at the LCD (“chimp”) in the field which isn’t helping my load once I get home. My latest Arizona “culling” went from a starting point of 428G and 22,417 files down to 159G and 7,947 files (note, files doubled due to RAW and JPG)…and in the hours of doing that and ugh. If there is a brightspot, I was able to add to my annual tally due to birds found in the shots I didn’t record in eBird at the time…oh, and now about 300G I can use in our upcoming trip south ha. I can definitely see the therapeutic side of your culling phase, as satisfying as a good house cleaning.

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  2. It’s 19ºF outside as I comment. Jake has been out a frostted his peeshooter. I’m sure you are looking forward to a bit of warmer weather. That was a lovely grackle posing for you.

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    1. We are currently at a shocking 55 degrees at the moment, but a quick look at the forecast shows we go down to by Wednesday ugh. Must get RV packed and get out of here as soon as possible!!! You need to make Jake a version of the Boot Snoot for his peeshooter, nobody wants frost there… NOBODY hahaha. I am not sure if that Grackle of was posing for the camera or rather looking for some way past my defenses to smack me with its bill – they are quite the menace in action and voice!

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      1. Since Jake likes to pee on dry tumbleweeds, he might like the way the frost bites. He may be a dogomasachist.

        We’ve had highs in the 50s, but the cold winds blew in today. Brrr.

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            2. I don’t know that it is too cold in Texas, but it has been cold in Florida acotding to Chandler the wildlife dude. I’m sure Linda hasn’t watched Chandler. Even though he is a good looking guy he handles all kinds of deadly SSssnaKes!

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            4. Chandler is quite a character and seems awfully reckless with deadly snakes. He was bitten by a monocled cobra in India earlier in the year. They gave him 22 vials of antivenine. That would have cost him over a million dollars to have that much antivenine in the States.

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  3. Very useful mnemonic, I’m adding it to my list! (Now all I need is a mnemonic to remember how to spell mnemonic!) You got great photos of this guy, so much better than when I normally see them in the parking lots picking the bugs off our bumpers – yum!

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    1. Yes, you definitely have your share of the Great-Tails out there John and you hit the nail on the head with their “less than appealing” pension for squawking up the place. We’ll be heading back into their region here in a few weeks…reminds me to get some earplugs ha. Appreciate the kind words and have yourself a wonderful time out there in the desert. Thanks for dropping in.

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        1. Sounds great! We plan to be out there sometime in April if the schedule holds. Just finished processing all the images from our visit out there last January and now itching to get back to all those awesome birding locations in the area.

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    1. You are absolutely right Sandra, void of light these birds are incredibly boring and I often overlook them as a result. This particular specimen was sitting up in the light just perfectly and grabbed my attention immediately – so pretty with all those prismatic colors. Hope all is well with you and guessing you are in full travel mode about now. We start heading south in a couple of weeks and can’t wait to see what birds are awaiting us.

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  6. Another key field ID tip, thanks. Though this comment was original posted days ago, but WordPress didn’t see fit to post it. So I’m posting what I remember from then. Very nice coloring for such a mundane name.

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    2. Not sure what is going on – it won’t let me reply to this comment either…trying this for the third time. Basically trying to say I have a pile scraps of papers with tips on them I should really combine into a post before I lose them (as if anyone would be interested in them).

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  7. Great photos, Brian. I really like grackles, they always seem to be enjoying themselves with a little bit of mischief thrown in. And all the males have beautifully shimmering feathers.

    Thank you for explaining the difference between the Great-tailed and Boat-tailed varieties, I have never seen one of the latter, but now what to look for.

    I’m also very envious that you got to see a Snowy Owl.

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    1. Thank you Tanja. Think I’d word it closer to “mostly mischief and a little bit of enjoyment” ha. The males definitely have the show off colors (in the light) – kinda of like the good light bad light episode of Seinfeld. Glad I could provide you a useful tip …. just a note, they have them T E X A S (I’ll get you down there one of these days hehehe). We are definitely luck as we get a stray Snowy Owl or two show up in our harvested fields every year (although last year we didn’t get any). I am not sure how these are spotted initially as they start out all looking like white plastic bags in the middle of a field. Thankfully the eBirders in the area send out the “owl signal” when they are encountered. Here is the odd thing – we generally find them in fields near wind farms which extremely scary. Appreciate you stopping by Tanja (ignore those chants of Texas behind me).

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      1. I once missed an opportunity to see a Snowy Owl at the Marina at Lake Pueblo State Park, a mere 50 miles from home. It regularly perched on ships’ masts in plain sight.
        I hope your owls will safely stay away from those wind farms.
        There is no need to refrain from mentioning Texas. I absolutely need to make that happen at some point.

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        1. I always fret about those Owls and the windmills, but at least with the ones that get spotted, they seems to be staying away from the blades. Texas, who said Texas, did I say Texas, hey Texas hehehe.

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    1. Glad you enjoyed Dshea. These are one of those birds that can go from rather drab to brilliant depending on the amount and direction of light that falls on them. I am sure there are a lot of people out there that haven’t had the chance to see their true colors and dismissed them as just another Crow. Take care and appreciate you joining us here at Intrigued.

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