Boat-Tailed Grackle (Male)

Description:

Boat-tailed Grackles are large, lanky songbirds with rounded crowns, long legs, and fairly long, pointed bills. Males have very long tails that make up almost half their body length and that they typically hold folded in a V-shape, like the keel of a boat. Males are glossy black all over.

Habitat:

Boat-tailed Grackles are a strictly coastal species through most of their range; however, they live across much of the Florida peninsula, often well away from the immediate coast. This spotting was in my backyard, about twelve miles from the beach.

Notes:

These scrappy blackbirds are supreme omnivores, feeding on everything from seeds and human food scraps to crustaceans scavenged from the shoreline. They come to my backyard and feed on the rice I place there for the Muscovy ducks.