WILDLIFE WEDNESDAY: Grocery Store Trash Bird
Great-tailed Grackles spread west (and north and east) one truck stop at a time
What do the Morongo Basin and Austin, Texas, have in common?
Both places like to think of themselves as “weird,” although Austin stopped being strange a few decades ago. Both are great places for music. And both are homes to Great-tailed Grackles!
These elegantly bizarre black birds are one of three iconic Austin animals along with armadillos and free-tailed bats. In the Morongo Basin, grackles barely register because they are fairly new arrivals and grace only a few bright and trashy hot spots; they’ll probably never join our wildlife pantheon of jackrabbits, roadrunners, and desert tortoises.
An Annoyance of Grackles
The collective noun for grackles is “annoyance,” and that tells you everything you need to know about the huge, pesky, raucous flocks of these birds occupying parking lot trees and pooping on hapless shoppers who didn’t read the white, splotchy signs that signal a grackle roost.
Here in the Morongo Basin, grackles are more demure; maybe that’s because they just got here. I first noticed them twenty years ago or so when I stopped at Stater Bros. on my way to Wonder Valley. I heard the scratchy call that sounds like creaking hinges capped with a metallic cry of “grackle! grackle!”
I had loved these birds as an undergraduate at the University of Texas, enticing them with peanut M&Ms to come close to me so I could observe their beautiful black, iridescent feathers, gleaming with purple and ocean blue. Their long tails seem asymmetric and are very expressive.
The males show off to impress each other and attract females, spreading their wings, fanning their tails, and pointing their beaks straight up to the sky. For a long time I thought the grackles kept company with cowbirds until I learned the females are much smaller than males and their feathers are a prim brown-black.
It made me happy to see my old Texas friends here, but when I told my ornithologist colleague at the LA Natural History Museum about them, he just said, “bah. Trash birds.” He explained that Great-tailed grackles had been working their way west from South Texas, following the 10 and 40 interstates, going from truck stop to supermarket to golf course.
Grackles need trees to roost in, a water source (puddles will do), and a good supply of seeds and bugs and French fries. The Twentynine Palms Stater Bros. parking lot fills the bill.
Best Heard at a Distance
After seeing them at the zócalo in Guadalajara, I learned that they’re called zanate in Mexico, and their large vocabulary of songs is admired and said to represent the seven passions of life: love, hate, fear, courage, joy, sadness, and anger. Grackles aren’t members of the crow family, although they seem almost as intelligent—or at least, as mischievous—but are related to blackbirds and orioles. They can be almost as melodious as blackbirds; however, one biologist said they were “best heard at a distance.” (I’ve found that’s also true of parrots.)
Great-tailed grackles are probably here to stay, although they’ve been having a hard time in the Stater Bros. parking lot since one of the big palo verde trees blew over in the July 2024 storms that flooded 29. There are records of them on iNaturalist at the golf course on the Marine base as well as a few other attractive spots along Highway 62.
The next time you’re at a green and lush spot in the desert—or a fast food parking lot—keep an eye out for Great-tailed Grackles and enjoy experiencing these raucous, ridiculous, rambunctious birds.
If your favorite isn’t on the list (we are limited to five choices), write it in the comments!
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You should write a book! Seriously.
We can watch great-tailed grackles in the YV Home Depot/Walmart parking lots also. Love your stories. 😊