Purple Finch, yes! Grackle, boo and hiss!

Bright Purple Finches with sombre Juncoes and House Sparrows - 18 April 2011. Margaret Madsen photo

I don't greet every returning bird with the dance of joy. When I stepped outside yesterday morning, I was accosted with the loud gr-a-a--ck, gra-a-ack greeting from another of the birds on my black list - the Common Grackle. It was perched high in the birch tree, surveying the crowd of Dark-eyed Juncoes and sparrows congregated for breakfast. The noise it makes is almost as irritating as fingernails on a blackboard. It's one of the swaggering bullies of the bird world; when it decided to fly down to the feeder tray, all the smaller birds scurried out of its way.

Common Grackle at tray feeder. M.Madsen photo

We were unfortunate enough to have a pair nest in the spruce tree the last few summers and going outside to do a bit of weeding or check the flower beds was enough to bring on the loudest, angry harangue you'd want to hear. They've been known to snack on baby birds or eggs, but I think the most irritating thing about them is that they ruin so many fine evergreens by insisting on being king of the castle perched on the top leader of the tree, even newly planted little trees just starting out. They are relatively big birds and break off the top leader. In several places where we lived, they sorely tried my patience by damaging my attempts to establish evergreens in our yard.

The grackle appears black except when the light is right you see its iridescent purplish-blue head and purple and bronze on its body. It's the long, keel-shaped tail and the pale yellow eye that let you know you're seeing a grackle - and its long bill which it sticks in the air as it stomps about. When it's flying, it looks like is has twisted its tail sideways. Or as Alan Smith says in Saskatchewan Birds, its tail trails behind like a hatchet blade!

(Note: I had this ready to post April 20 but decided to join John and Roxy for their morning walk. Just outside the gate, I slipped on what was the last icy patch of spring and ended up with a broken hip and surgery.)