This very young Grackle was not impressed with this having to be an adult business, and took an agonizingly long time to figure out how to get to all that wonderful food. Click for full size.
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Art, Fun, & Nonsense.
Yesterday we had a young grackle that was still trying to get the adults to feed it. The adults were being firm and there was much yelling back and forth before the young grackle finally came back to the tray alone and ate while the parents waited in a nearby tree.
Aww, it doesn’t have its blues yet!
:D Anyone who watches grackles knows how clumsy they are, I have adults who take about a year to figure out how to get down from the pines onto the deck, and half the time they crash land, right on top of smaller birds. That is so magnified when it’s a young one. This poor little one had the worst time trying to figure it out, and after an agonizingly long time, managed to half fall, half land on the suet cake.
Maybe they think they are smaller than they are. They hang out with smaller birds and could think they are the same size and can flit around in the same spaces in the same way. ;-)
So “grackle at the birdfeeder” = “bull in a china shop”? :D
rq @ 5:
Yes! They can look so elegant and graceful. Then they move.
“Just hold the pose. I said hold it!! … You know they’re never going to invite you back. Again. *sigh*”
Before the shiny, gravel road colours, earthy.
The first and the last bring out the juvenile character of the bird most clearly.
Ice Swimmer @ 8:
Oh, that first photo. Little Grackle just looked so lost and forlorn, it made me want to rush out and play parent. They can manage to look quite heartbroken and in need of help and a hug.
If I didn’t look closely (which I am wont to do when I think it’s a ‘common’ bird), I would think that was a brown cowbird.
I remember seeing some young grackles attempting, multiple times, to land on my feeder, which tends to rock and sway a lot when larger (doves, thrashers, etc) try to land on it. The only good news is all the knocking about sprayed enough seed around the ground that it could at least eat when it gave up. :)