Description
The Great-Tailed Grackle or Mexican Grackle (Quiscalus mexicanus) is a highly social North and South American medium-sized songbird. The males are glossy black and iridescent and the females are brown and drab colored. Although the grackle is black, it is not a blackbird. It is sometimes mistaken for a crow but is not a member of that family either. Great-tailed grackles originally came from the tropical lowlands of Central and South America but over the past 140 years have spread into North America. Grackles forage in pastures, wetlands and mangroves for a wide variety of food. They eat larvae, insects, nestlings, worms, tadpoles, fish and eggs. They remove parasites from cattle and eat fruits and grains. Grackles are highly intelligent birds that can solve complex problems to get food. The male grackle has a distinctive noisy call. They communally roost in trees at night and during the breeding season they build a nest in the trees. This male grackle was photographed while perched in a bush at Walnut Canyon Lakes in Flagstaff, Arizona, USA.
