Went looking for the Great-tailed Grackle reported by John Cyrus. Found the
flock containing the grackle about a mile and a half west from Cty Rd 151 on
the Sibley County line (182nd Street.) Without a little luck we would have
never seen the bird as the flock is now about 750 birds. The Great-tailed
Grackle chose to sit in a tree relatively close to the road and in the open
so we were able to set up a scope and compare all the features to the Common
Grackles, Rusty amd Redwing Blackbirds, Starlings, and a few other misc that
made up the group.
Only now the bird was on the south side of the road, in Sibley County as the
entire grove was on the south side of the road.. Both counties are first
county records for this species. We never saw it fly north of the county
line.
As it was late in the day this flock seemed to be going to roost in this
grove of trees. There were a few other flocks of blackbirds in the general
area (a 3-4 mile circle.) Also as we were leaving the area some birds were
moving north for the night. To find this bird in the morning it will depend
on where the farmers ar plowing. All the flocks of blackbirds seemed to be
in the most recently plowed fields.
Dennis and Barbara Martin
Shorewood, MN
dbmar...@skypoint.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Cyrus" <cyrus...@hotmail.com>
To: <MOU-NET@LISTS.UMN.EDU>
Sent: Saturday, October 23, 2010 2:09 PM
Subject: [mou-net] Carver County Great-tailed Grackle
A Great-tailed Grackle(male) was with flock of ~200 Common Grackles in a
field on the west side of Cty. Rd. 151 in southern Carver County this
morning. Luckily for me he spent quite a bit of time just posing in one
spot giving me good size comparisons. His bright yellow eyes and
iridescent body really stood out. The Grackles eventually moved away
from the road further into the fields. Also near that area was a large
mixed flock of Ring-billed(didn't count) and Franklin's Gulls(167)(Farmer
was tilling the field which is what probably attracted the gulls in the
first
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