Invasion

As we move through autumn and enjoy what fall migration can bring to our yard, something that is standing out this year is the invasion of common grackles.  We do experience this every year but only a day here, another day there; not like this year where it has been over a week of daily visitors by the hundreds.  Hundreds?  Yes, easily 200 plus I have counted every morning.

It's been loud, crazy and fun.  The only thing is how quickly they decimate my peanut feeders and the food isn't cheap.  What hasn't gone up by ridiculous amounts, eh?

We don't keep many feeders out these days.  I can think back to some years ago where there was at least 7 different feeders scattered throughout our yard.  Right now, there's a peanut ring for whole peanuts, a small metal feeder for shelled peanuts, a small feeder for black oil sunflower and there's a pure suet cake hanging in our lilac for the woodpeckers.

With the mass amounts of grackles, I'm only putting out a couple handfuls of peanuts.  I know they're loading up for their trip south soon, and I don't mind helping to some degree.  There's three other nearby backyards with bird feeders so this also helps them out, and I don't feel so bad about my decision to cut back on the food.

Here's a video from this morning after they all arrived.  I'm trying something new below so you don't need to click on that link.  Hopefully this worked.  I'm not tech savvy.

Yesterday afternoon the grackles showed up again after I put some peanuts out for the blue jays.  I noticed one unique looking grackle in the flock.

It was hard to stay on this bird since there was so many grackles out there and they all flushed in a flash fairly regularly for whatever reason.  It would be many minutes before they all started coming back one by one and eventually this bird would appear.  I've been keeping watch this morning for him to reappear but so far he hasn't.  He's cool and funky looking!  I thought about that quote... 

"They laugh at me because I look different.  I laugh at them because they all look the same."

His appearance made me enjoy the invasion a little more.

I know with the mass numbers of these birds here, that they've pushed other species away.  I've seen white-throated sparrows who normally stick around in the fall for a few days if not months but all have left soon after being seen.  Dark-eyed juncos are usually here in small numbers by now and staying.  Again, just one offs for a very brief bit and then gone.  Both ruby-crowned and golden-crowned kinglets made shorter than usual appearances.  I was happy when a white-breasted nuthatch showed up the other morning but he too didn't stick around once these guys showed up.

I don't hate these birds by any means but after over a week of steady appearances in such numbers, I won't be sad to see them move along on their journey south soon.  Unless I win the lottery this week.  HAHA!