This is our blackest Blackbird in the spring; in the fall it is hardly a black bird at all. Look for this species in swampy situations or along the margins of streams. It likes to walk about on the ground and through water like a sandpiper, and is more terrestrial than the Red-wing. The spring flocks sometimes burst forth into song, and the effect at a distance is that of sleigh-bells—a jangling, jolly chorus. A single male’s efforts hardly merit being called a song. Rusty Blackbirds are grackle-like in actions, and their whitish eyes suggest grackles, but they do not have trough-shaped tails and the tail-feathers are about of equal length.
PURPLE GRACKLE AND BRONZED GRACKLE
Quiscalus quiscula rigdgwayi Oberholser
and
Quiscalus quiscula æneus Ridgway
Other Names.—Blackbird; Crow Blackbird.
Description.—Males larger than Robin, with large tails, distinctly trough-shaped, especially in flight. The male Purple Grackle’s head and neck are brilliant, iridescent blue and violet; the body, which appears blackish at a distance, is glossed with blue, green, plum-color, and bronze, and the back and scapulars, and sometimes the sides, are crossed with iridescent bars. The male Bronzed Grackle’s head is iridescent greenish blue, with little or no violet reflection, and the body is rich, glossy bronze, without iridescent bars. In both these forms the females are similar but duller, and noticeably smaller. The eyes of all are pale yellow. Young birds are dull brown and, when quite young, have grayish eyes which turn to pale yellow as the bird grows older. Length: Male, 12 to 13½ inches.
Range in Pennsylvania.—The Purple Grackle is found east of the Alleghany Mountains; the Bronzed Grackle occurs west of the Alleghanies. In the mountainous sections the forms intermingle to a certain extent. Grackles are abundant summer residents from mid-March to November.
Nest.—A large, amply cupped structure of grasses, weeds, and other materials, sometimes strengthened with mud, usually built in a coniferous tree, in a yard, or on a campus, from 20 to 60 feet from the ground, but also built in willows, in bridges, high buildings, and rarely among cat-tails. Eggs: 3 to 7, pale blue, gray, or whitish, scrawled and blotched with brown, black, and gray.
This is the bird which is everywhere called “Blackbird.” It is a bird of the town, not of the wilds, preferring to nest in parks, cemeteries, and college campuses, among the pines, spruces, or cedars. It eats many cutworms, but does some damage in grain-fields, and in destroying fruit.
Grackles walk sedately about the lawns, their white eyes gleaming with a ghostly brilliance. The call-note is a harsh tschack.
Purple Grackle
EVENING GROSBEAK
Hesperiphona vespertina vespertina (W. Cooper)
Description.—Smaller than Robin; beak very large and heavy. Male: Forehead, line over eye, scapulars, lower back and rump, sides of breast and belly, dull yellow; crown and most of wing brownish black; secondaries and their greater coverts white, a prominent field-mark; rest of plumage olive-brown. Female: Grayish, the back and scapulars faintly washed with olive-yellow; wings, tail, and upper tail-coverts considerably spotted and marked with white; tips of the inner webs of all the tail-feathers, white; bill pale yellowish gray. Length: 8 inches.
Range in Pennsylvania.—A rare and irregular winter visitant, noted chiefly in the northern counties. In Pike and Tioga counties it has been noted with some regularity during the latter part of recent winters. It is usually to be seen in small flocks and it often occurs in towns.
Evening Grosbeaks see so little of man in their wilderness home in the Great Northwest that they are surprisingly unsuspicious when they visit us during the winter. They are sociable, almost always being seen in flocks, and they feed upon seeds of maple and other trees, upon frozen apples, and upon berries which they find, notably those of the mountain ash. Occasionally they visit the leafless shade trees of towns.