Birdland: All Hail The Grackle

Common Grackles sometimes get a bad rap. They can be noisy, raid the snacks at a patio party and squawk like the dickens. But they are highly intelligent, can recognize and remember individual humans and they also eat annoying wasps and crop-damaging insects. A flock of Grackles is called a “plague.” In the later summer through winter you can see them flying overhead to communal roosts. This Common Grackle was photographed in Belmar Park in Lakewood by Mark Silverstein.