Great-tailed Grackle

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I remember seeing this bird for the first time when I moved to Texas, I thought it was a pretty bird. And I still do. But what I didn’t realize that how common they in Texas and that their range is from Mexico to some parts of Mid-West, all of southwest part of United States. The population is steadily increasing and growing the size of distribution to further north into Mid-West and some parts of western United States.

This bird will eat anything. Literally. Maybe not so literally. They will eat from fruits, vegetables, seeds to insects (slugs, worms, grasshoppers, beetles, moths, spiders, wasps, you name it) and some small mammals like mice and shrews. They also sometime eat bird eggs and nestlings. They eat lizards, snakes and fish as well.

Their foraging range is so broad, and that is probably why their population size is increasing over years. It had been suspected that this species had a part in causing extinction of Slender-billed Grackle in Mexico years ago.

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My iNaturalist observation can be found here.

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