The winds of late October picked up with gusto around our farm as I puttered about fixing a garden fence. Leaves swirled by, a loose screen door slammed a broken tempo, and the sun flashed like a strobe as clouds scudded by.
One odd thing about this particular wind was that it was warm, a continuing weather phenomenon that defies the calendar. However, the lack of wet snow and freezing rain is welcome when it comes to getting late season yard work done.
The second odd thing about some of these zephyrs was that despite the overhead whooshing, no leaves swirled and no screen door slammed. Looking up I quickly discovered the reason ... grackles! Hundreds of blackbirds flying by! No, actually thousands of birds! Their flock stretched like an undulating ribbon from horizon to horizon.
Our neighbour has just finished harvesting his corn fields and these birds were looking for a place to dine, so wave after wave of birds were settling onto our tall maple trees that overlooked the fields.
Now the wind-like “whoosh” sound turned into an almost musical “ker-wink ker-wink” as each birds expressed their concern as to why have they stopped, and when do we eat?
Although the maples have finished shedding their leaves, the branches that were bare a moment ago were now completely foliated again, this time in jet black.
This blackbird migration has become a regular occurrence at our place for the last dozen years or so, and every year I try to somehow capture the majesty of it all with my camera. And so off I ventured, trying stealthily to avoid the notice of 20,000 grackle eyes.
Looking like a regular blackbird that has been stretched a bit at both ends, grackles tend to hang out in large groups, sometimes numbering into the hundreds of thousands. During the summer they fan out across the land to build nests and raise young, but in autumn they converge in massive flocks to seek food in corn fields and woodlands.
You may have heard that the group name for crows is ‘a murder’; grackles have also been saddled with an equally ominous title ... ‘a plague’. And from a corn grower's point of view, yep, I get it. When several thousand birds decide that your almost-ready-to-harvest corn crop would make a great roadside diner, nasty descriptors like plague do indeed come to mind.
At this time of year there is usually a plethora of oak acorns available, eagerly sought by squirrels, bears, turkeys and yes, grackles. I have oft wondered just how a bird like a grackle can eat a whole acorn ... and a bit of research has revealed an answer: inside the upper bill is a hard keel which is used to score the outside of the acorn. Once the shell is weakened it can be bitten open and the soft innards of the acorn provide much needed protein and nutrients.
As the birds were more focused on the leftover corn debris that was just laying there waiting in the field, my movements were overlooked, allowing for a ring-side seat to the action. Like a rolling wave, the birds scoured the soil and blanketed the rows of corn stubble.
But then, something, somewhere, scared the heck out of one of the birds and it flinched!
Flock behaviour is a fascinating thing to watch. One bird sees something (real or imagined) and flinches ... the bird on either side notices this flinch and they flinch too. Within a mere second all 2,000 birds are flinching as one, and rise up with a muffled “VROOOM.” It’s amazing the sound 4,000 wings can make when grabbing air in unison!
I quickly deduced that it was not me that caused the disturbance, as the entire flock wheeled and fly directly at me, basically at eye-level! Now, I have never been in front of a stampede of bison or wild horses, but I do feel there was some level of similar sensation as a black feathered wall with bright yellow eyes enveloped me!
And then they were gone. All had resettled atop the maples once again, not quite ready to abandon this place of abundant food. The musical chorus of chatting individuals flooded down from on high, and I took my leave.
Some reports indicate that grackles are a species which has shown dramatic declines in population over the past half century. Even the International Union of Conservation for Nature has placed them on the Red List as “vulnerable.”
Over-reaction you may ask? Well, um, let’s remember the fateful tale of the Passenger Pigeon which also darkened the sky over this farm less than a couple hundred years ago.
The rest of the garden fence is repaired and as I enter the workshop door a glance upwards reveals a new flock of grackles arriving en masse. November will seem quiet without them.