Pair of serenading males
Disinterested Female
I first noticed these Great-tailed Grackles (Quiscalus mexicanus) many years ago when my wife was having to see a specialist in Houston. I wasn't much of a bird watcher back then, but I did notice that these birds looked different. It finally dawned on me that it was their tails; most bird tails are horizontal but these birds had tails that were vertical (or at least that is how I explained it at the time). Also, the call of these birds was unlike anything I had heard in Arkansas. A few years later I got involved in a mission in Acuna, Mexico (across the rio from Del Rio) and would see them all over the place. These are a few shots I took while in Galveston, but it seems that these birds are quickly extending their range. They started in Mexico and quickly spread through out the southwestern US and are now moving due North. Give it a few years and I might see them at my backyard feeder.
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