August 31, 2006

Grackles - Common Grackles, Grackle facts, The Great-Tailed Grackle Mysteries, Grackle Whacked, and the Great Grackle Migration.

Gracklephoria score: MoFi: 1, Der Blöö: 0

  • Rhymes with Crackles?
  • And with Spackles! Not to mention snacks and jackals!
  • I DEEPLY LOVE THEM.
  • I had never heard of grackles until high school, when I read the short story of that name by Semyon Babayevsky. Sadly, I can't seem to find anything to link to about the story. Neither can I remember any details of the plot. *shuffles off to rocking chair to watch birdies*
  • Cool birds, and it always looks to me like their tails are about to fall off. I've seen a few large flocks in Toronto lately, so perhaps some are migrating through.
  • The Grackle by Ogden Nash The grackle’s voice is less than mellow, His heart is black, his eye is yellow, He bullies more attractive birds With hoodlum deeds and vulgar words, And should a human interfere, Attacks that human in the rear. I cannot help but deem the grackle An ornithological debacle.
  • We always call them McBirds since they are always in McDonald's parking lots here(Florida)scavenging for wayward fries and whatever. Nice to find out they are real birds as opposed to a 'McD' product.
  • Grackles can take over entire neighborhoods, and run off all of the other birds. Where my parents live the grackles took over for a summer or two, and they can get pretty loud and obnoxious. They also like to poop on your head (or your car, or your lawn furniture... but particularly your head).
  • I don't think I've ever been pooped on by a grackle. Any of several Asian mynas of the genus Gracula. heh. Gracula. Blah! blah! heheh. It says they can be taught to mimic speech.
  • Not many grackles in these parts - they kinda look like little crows with a mettalic paint job.
  • Sorry Chy, I hate those miserable buggers. Nash and Meridithea have it right--they run off other (pretty & melodious) birds, and they crap on everything. Any little hole will be exploited, and the get into sheds or barns and make a stinking messy nest. They carry bird lice, and right now they're a (vast) resevoir for West Nile. We've had several in this neighborhood confirmed for the virus, and my neighbor two miles down is just recovering from 8 weeks of misery from WN. (and I put over $200 into shots for the horses for WN) *starts loading shotgun Now magpies talk, and they be cool and funny birds
  • Not to be confused with their slightly less obnoxious cousins The Starlings When people in the U.S. say they've seen a starling, it's usually a grackle.
  • they run off pretty & melodious birds, and they crap on everything. Any little hole will be exploited Holy shit, I'm a grackle.
  • Desired username: (This is the name that will appear on your posts. Please don't use the '+' symbol.) Whoops. Heh heh. Nothing! Nothing, nevermind.
  • I MEANT WITH FRIED RICE
  • Simply waching them digging for seeds in fresh manure is a turn-off, as well as other nasty pursuits: Their diet consists of a wide variety of animal and vegetable food, including insects and invertebrates but also occasional eggs and nestlings. In rare instances, Common Grackles will attack and eat small birds and lizards, and in coastal areas they forage at the tide line for small invertebrates, even wading into the water to capture live fish.
  • Yeah, but that's pretty common for animals of all types. Many pretty little birdies can be seen picking in the turdies.
  • FRIED RICE!! *spit-take with pizza Damn you Chy, you owe me a keyboard!
  • HA HA!
  • More grackle-cackle in this old thread. dark birds stud the wires leaving even gaps between they space themselves in fall while time ripens the gathering flock and then at last they rise tornadically above the roofs unfurl like smoke above a guttered candle in a swaybacked cabin in North America where if you are a black bird men call you names though no bird sings more liquidly in spring from the forsythia though you might think with a name like cowbird it ought to moo
  • I have never heard of these 'grackles'. Therefore, I do not believe they exist.
  • You are totally Steved from this thread, kit.
  • Politics of Desperation What we cannot do now is imagine any other way * Soft gurgles of three cowbirds over the fence line. Shadows in elm & spruce & oak. Mist along the river stones. Salt-spill on the table and windows mapped with prints. The tiniest thread of winter, a gift, in mid-summer sky. -- Sam Rasnake
  • *stands on park bench, applauds*
  •        Allegory
    
    
    The cockatoo hears gamelon,
         and dances.
    The peacock hears rude voices in his head.
    the swallow hears her happiness
         carooming all around her; 
    the grackle hears his doom being sealed.
    The blue jay hears the cardinal,
         his loyal opposition.
    The seagull hears a sharp insoluble debate.
    The vulture hears the world's 
         vulgar gossip, notes it well;
    ambitious robin keeps his shrewd ear low,
         and hears the dew
    
        vanish, the shade
        steal, the cat
        mouse, the grass
        cover the worm.
    The crow hears lies, lies, lies, and cries
        out curses. Nighthawk hears the crow's
        lyrical soul. 
    The mnockingbird hears comedy
         in all this.
    The dove hears pain
         in all this.
    The lesser bird of paradise
         hears, but can't sing.
    The phoenix hears the sirens crying fire!,
         and dances.
    -- Jenny Mueller
  • fantastic, bees. this is the end of moulting season, so many of the grackles no longer look like they barely survived a drowning. However, most of their tail feathers have not grown back yet. Watching a chubby, tailless grackle try to hustle across the yard is one of funnier sights in nature.
  • C'mon and lemme see you shake your tailfeather ♫♪ C'mon and lemme see you shake your tailfeather C'mon and lemme see you shake your tailfeather ♫♪ C'mon and lemme see you shake your tailfeather!! aaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAHH Twist it! Shake it shake it shake it shake it babayyy! do the Grackle!
  • A Grackle's Poem Howard McCord You, Pilgrim, tell me about pigeon's milk, the black eggs of the Emu, which birds ant, and why the rail is thin. You do know birds, Pilgrim? Are not the bones of the loon more solid than my own? And the cry of the Kestrel klee, klee?
  • Starling population in UK in decline for the past 40 years.
  • Whoosh! We've got lots; how shall we send them?
  • Yes, can I box some up for you?
  • Crows He said John, immediately the crows appeared. Not sad, I said, I'm not. He said, in case of emergency call. A leaf fell. We danced until two. He said he lived over a truck stop, said, these particular crows are trouble's handprint. I remembered Robert, before him Michael, room 208, wallets on dressers, in case of emergency please notify, the phone rang, black like crows, sky seeped in, singed, vagrant. I don't sing, I said. I do everything but that. He said, keep this in a safe place, said, in case of emergency. The fistful of crows flickered, black, eating holes in the windows, a kind of notification, a kind of emergency, a kind of slipping away. And the wallet lay open on the window, the glass emptied itself, a stain in the back of my throat, the taste of wet wood. The windows cracked, crows flew through making holes not in the sky, but in the world. I said John, I said, please notify, there's an emergency. The crows wheeled above us, a circular saw. Copyright © 2006 Deborah Bogen All rights reserved from Landscape with Silos Texas Review Press (via Verse Daily®)
  • Gypsy Bride   
    
    Yes my love   seedy birds like you
    On blackberry canes   by deep lagoons
    Ring sunset bells   of untuned woe
    
    But for you   a midnight coat I'll weave
    And find for your boots a last   From the ear
    Of a sow   a fine pouch perhaps
    
    Then I'll pick ripe berries   and dance
    With you   by the cold-thorned canes
    As I tambourine   our tin-can fare
    
    You've boots and coat   yet still can't
    Marry   so I'll steal a horse
    On the horse you say   from this thicket
    
    You'll fly   to your own true love who
    Waits   for I'm nothing but
    A dark bird's dream   a trick of light
    Wild breech of faith
    --Susan Terris
  • 13 Ways of Leering at a Grackle 1. Among sixty rumpled grackles, the only moving dream flowed through the mind of a beholder. 2. I polished myself, like a mirror etched by the flight of grackle wings. 3. There grackle danced his dark feathers. He was more tango than Astaire and Rogers. 4. One times one times one is one. One nest one egg one grackle hatching. 5. I know well which I prefer, the churr of wings pressed tight against the pearl of spiraled sky, as smoke surmounts the ash flame swirls. 6. Coyotes filled a steep arroyo with barbaric yawps. The bustle of the grackle twitched, up and down. The wind stitched feather to flight, no man knows why. 7. O fat lady at the bandstand, why leaf through your programme? The grackles on their thin shanks enter next to peck seeds from sunflowers. 8. I see noble furrows in your implacable brow; I see, too, the grackles drawing circles tight about us. 9. See the grackle take off to loop the loop of a common fate about us. 10. Waiters, after gazing at the grackles glazed salad with sweet oil, and a bowl of saffroned rice got spilled. 11. He drove through East St. Louis to a cardinal point. Then a fear pecked him so that he perceived he was only a vehicle for a grackle poem. 12. It isn't smoke that's rising. This column of grackles gyres. 13. It was famished and replete. It flew in circles and was going to land. The grackle shat on the television antenna.
  • Ooh, that's the sort of poem I like. Who wrote that?
  • I bee.
  • Oops. I bee the author.
  • Well, then, that explains it!
  • *applause!*
  • The grackle shat is totally the name of my new band.
  • Sorry Chy, I hate those miserable buggers. ... *starts loading shotgun But wait! Why not work on your marksmanship at the same time? Yes, that's right - you should be offing those miserable buggers with your very own George Jones 50th Anniversary Tribute Rifle! Order today, quantities limited.
  • Fish Tick: If anything could make me look upon grackles with delight, it is the poem by our Poet Lariet, Beeswacky. Bees, that's printed and on my wall as I speak. Tomorrow I shall share it with Mr. B. Horse
  • *blush* Written in hopes 'twould amuse you in particular during those sleepless hours, BlueHorse.
  • A good 'un for Pete: A Grackle's Poem by Howard McCord You, Pilgrim, tell me about pigeon's milk, the black eggs of the Emu, which birds ant, and why the rail is thin. You do know birds, Pilgrim? Are not the bones of the loon more solid than my own? And the cry of the Kestrel klee, klee?
  • And a not-so-good 'un: The Grackle An Affectionate Parody of The Raven by EAP by Will T. Laughlin Once upon a midnight boring, as I sat, alone and poring Over many a quaint and curious volume of electric bills, Suddenly there came a thumping, as of someone gently bumping, Or a pair of hamsters humping underneath my window sills; Scant attention was I paying, as my thoughts were gently straying, And the stereo was playing Greatest Hits of Ish Kabibble -- All at once, a vast, unpleasant Grackle, black and irridescent, Flew in through my chamber window like a wayward dirigible: Quoth the Grackle: "Wibble, wibble!" All unmoving, all uncaring, long it sat and watched me, staring 'Til I lost all sense of bearing and my lips began to dribble. Then that grim and grisly Grackle looked at me and gave a cackle, And his coarse and croaking crackle made my very giblets gibble: Quoth the Grackle: "Wibble, wibble!" I was taken quite aback, although I knew 'twas but a Grackle; In the face of one so black, alas! my face turned white as chalk, For though I am not religious, still I felt it was prodigious, And I cried out to this creature that had learnt somehow to talk: "Tell me, tell me, cryptic Sibyl, what you mean by 'wibble, wibble'; Could it be some ancient shibboleth, for centuries unheard? Are these words that you have spoken to be taken to betoken Something else? Or are you jokin'? Are they meaningless? Absurd?" "Wibble, wibble!" quoth the Bird. Then I thought, "A swift attack'll shortly rid me of this Grackle," And I cast about to find myself a poker or a broom. But the bird, as though denying me the chance of even trying, Took to fluttering and flying 'round and 'round about the room: With a burst of laughter ribald, once again he "wibble, wibble"-ed, As he settled for a moment on a pallid bust of Trakl. Then the Grackle dropped an oily purple dropping on the doily, And he set himself to pecking at a random bit of spackle: "Wibble, wibble!" quoth the Grackle. It would take a block and tackle now to rid me of this Grackle, For the evil-hearted jackal isn't lonely anymore: Now his every kin and sibling comes to join him in his wibbling, And their nightly noise is nibbling at my spirit's very core. I am welded to this Grackle with a strong and sturdy shackle; By his beak am I impaled, as was Mercutio by Tybalt. Since I cannot last these pains out, I must blow my silly brains out, And I'm going to pull the trigger when this final verse is scribble't, 'Ere the final "Wibble"'s wibble't!
  • cooooooooo
  • I'm raven again -- for wondrous is BlueHorse's Poe-em! Flight Reflex It must be winter in this part of Texas because the grackles are posse-d up. They toupee rooftops and wires. They ornament trees and anything else with room and resilience for beak and claw. Anything that doesn't move much. And always, that damn epistle of chalk and fingernail. And always, grackles signify the need for unity in Texas, whether bird, black, or both. It must be winter because it feels like spring and the man-sized bugs have split for wherever bugs go because of the grackles. Like urban flight, only not, and the trees naturally crooked for hanging hang just a little lower, their leaves chilling in the surplus cusp of winter. --Adrian Matejka
  • Safe Linda Bierds Safe, we thought. The flood waters nestled the arc of their udders, but no higher, dewlaps, flanks, even the tips of the briskets, dry. All day they stood in the sea-scape meadow, their square heads turned from the wind. By evening they were dead. Chill, we learned, not drowning, killed them — the milk vein thick on the floor of the chest filling with cold, stunning the heart. We had entered the house, where silt-water sketched on the walls and doorways a single age-ringing. When we looked back they had fallen, only the crests of their bodies breaking the waterline. I remember the wind and a passive light, then the jabber of black grackles riding each shoulder’s upturned blade.
  • La Brea I am the tarred and feathered stork Who flapped its limbs until they stuck. I am a tapir ancestor Who came for water, swallowed tar. This is the asphalt killing-ground, A lake that thirsts. Beware. Be warned. His trunk a blowhole out of reach, A mammoth trumpets liquid pitch. We are a pack of dire wolves Who scented death and mired ourselves. I am the grief of a giant sloth Who drank the waters of black death. Lion and lioness salivate At bison ready trapped to eat. Coyote, jaguar and puma Die for a taste of dying llama. A squirrel bleating in distress Allures a rattlesnake to death. The tar immobilizes both The short-faced bear and sabretooth. The water winnows skeletons Caught in a trap of sun and rain. I am the skull of the only human, Anonymous La Brea Woman. The sump of ancient swamp-remains Swallows the battles of old bones. The eagle and the condor drown In liquid nightfall underground. --Duncan Forbes
  • Sit Sit, drink your coffee here; your work can wait awhile. You're twenty-six, and still have some of life ahead. No need for wit; just talk vacuities, and I'll Reciprocate in kind, or laugh at you instead. The world is too opaque, distressing and profound. This twenty minutes' rendezvous will make my day: To sit here in the sun, with grackles all around, Staring with beady eyes, and you two feet away. --Vikram Seth