The most common bird around here is the long tailed grackle. They look like blackbirds and are quite big as birds go -- bigger than bluejays and cardinals. The females don't have the long tail and they are brown, joining most females in the bird world who have have less visual pizzaz than their men. The boys' feathers have a distinct deep blue sheen to their black plumage, iridesent like an opal. They don't hop, they strut. They are really sharp too... they may look nonchalant, but they know when you're around and if you toss a crumb or seed their way they're on it immediately and in a flash, back for more.
Until we moved in mid February, we lived on the 6th floor of a high rise, just above a row of trees. When Spring came they became grackle condos, their boughs swaying with found twigs, the mothers tucking the edges just so while the fathers held court high on an outer limb, emitting their strange mechanical caw. Every morning, you'd hear the chatter rise with the sun. I am NOT a morning person but many dawns found me on the porch with binoculars watching these things with the awe of a child. In all my years, somehow I'd managed to miss this going on around me. I could peek into several grackle nests and every now and then be treated to seeing the babies pop their heads up. But I never saw them leave the nest or learn to fly because the trees leaves grew too full by that time.
Yesterday I had to kill time waiting for the zoo to open. I noticed a racket going on over head and looked up to see two females fighting in the tree I stood beneath. They separated for a moment on different branches, then collided again, then separated still squawking at each other. I noticed a small grayish -brown, rather furry looking thing a bit higher up, partially obscured by leaves. It was very still. I was trying to figure out what it was, when one of the females flew past my face to the fence post beyond my shoulder. As I was turning to look at her, the fuzzy little thing swooped down along the same path in a bit of a zig zag and made an unsteady landing on the top wire of the fence itself. It was clearly a bird, but one that I'd never seen before. It had wings but the feathers were choppy, like how your bangs turned out if you tried to cut them yourself when you're seven. It was more plump than long, and it had a tail but it looked like a cat had taken a bite out of it.
Within 10 seconds the female grackle took a short flight from the post to the closest branch and the little bird followed more confidently. This time it managed to pick a branch more quickly, grabbed hold with it's little claws and landed. Just then the adult took off for a slightly higher branch, and the little one followed. I realized I was watching a mother giving her fledgling flying lessons.
Within the hour I saw two more fluffy babies sitting on branches, presumably near their nests, feeling the breeze and taking life in, with the safety of their mother perched close by. It just could not believe I saw three in one day after two years of watching daily for from my patio and on my many walks in the park and never seeing a one!
How magical it is to be this engaged in and delighted by L-I-F-E. Nature has done it's thing for centuries, but I feel new to it all, just like the fledgelings. I've traveled the world, and had the privilege to do a lot of very interesting, exciting and meaningful things. As I approach the half-century mark in my own, little lifetime, how amazing that it all comes back down to the things that are simplest and smallest.
Thank you to birdfeeders 101 for this borrowed picture.
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