Like Chuck, I have noticed a lot of new activity with grackles at Grandview
Cemetery. After seeing none for months, I watched 4 very quietly foraging in
the very top of a cone-laden spruce in crossbill wannebe mode. My take was
they were getting green seeds from this year's cones. Then yesterday a real
invasion occurred of over 50, and as best I could tell they also stayed in the
spruce trees, but rather than go up in the tops where the cones were, they
rifled thru American elm and cottonwood leaves lodged in the spruce boughs.
Not sure what they were finding in the dry, curled up leaves but I suspect
creatures that hide in such plant niches like earwigs and maybe daddylonglegs
(harvestmen) and true spiders. Today in Wellington and at the Wyoming Hereford
Ranch, many birds, including grackles were feasting on the recent outpouring of
sod webworm moths (the actual one we are seeing has the colorful common name of
the "vagabond crambus moth"). Other birds eating these moths for sure today
were House Sparrows, European Starlings, American Robins and Brewer's
Blackbirds. At Grandview Cemetery in Fort Collins, birds I observed getting
these small, slender, tan moths with long labial palps ("snout") were Gray
Flycatcher, Western Wood-Pewee, Wilson's Warblers, Chipping Sparrows (by the
dozens of moths per bird per hour), Green-tailed Towhee, and Northern Flicker.
Dave Leatherman
Fort Collins
________________________________
From: cobirds@googlegroups.com <cobirds@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Charles
Hundertmark <chundertma...@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, September 11, 2016 4:07 PM
To: Cobirds
Subject: [cobirds] Common Grackle movements in Lafayette, Boulder County
This afternoon, we had a large flock of Common Grackles in our front yard - not
a particularly exciting bird for list purposes, but an interesting phenomenon.
For about a week or so now, I've been noting flocks of 100-200 grackles moving
through the neighborhood. They are feeding vigorously and moving on quickly.
Interestingly, many of them are molting. I'm wondering if the grackles undergo
a molt migration in the fashion that Ted Floyd has so insightfully informed us
about for Chipping Sparrows.
Chuck Hundertmark
Lafayette, CO
303-604-0531
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