Sunny day with Grackles

A mild, sunny day with grackles. A lot of grackles.

It was the sound of a great grackle assemblage that first attracted attention -- a kind of ominous distant rumble and cackle, like some strange giant Victorian piece of machinery installed somewhere across the creek and trying to power up. It was, in fact, many thousands of grackles, filling the reeds, bushes and trees on the opposite shore and holding a noisy confabulation that could be heard for miles around. Smaller groups would break off from the main body of grackledom and fly up the creek, then back again, then down the creek. Eventually the whole mass appeared to tumble over itself, moving bunch by bunch down the shore before eventually dispersing.

How many grackles? 5,000? 10,000? Impossible to say. There were a few fellow travellers in the flocks (starlings, a few crows and perhaps some Red-wings) but mostly it was just grackles.

Thousands of grackles but just a few loons -- perhaps two or three and, curiously, flying towards the northwest. Mild weather = reverse migration? I had just finished saying that I had not seen any loons flying over this season when a loon appeared in full flight overhead and then another. Just in the right place but headed the wrong way. Maybe they thought spring had arrived.

Other passersby in the sky: a lopsided V formation of Canada Geese and a few Tree Swallows.

The tide was coming in so it was not possible to spend too much time in the marsh but enough to establish the presence of sparrows -- including Saltmarsh Sparrow. Further towards the head of the marsh there was a Blue-headed Vireo, a couple of Eastern Phoebes, some Ruby-crowned Kinglets and a few Yellow-rumped Warblers. Further inland, a Hermit Thrush or two and some numbers of White-throated Sparrows.

Eric Salzman

P.S.: Yesterday's post was mainly about early morning but I also had an interesting early evening observation. As I was sitting and writing at the kitchen table, I could see an insect ballet lit up by the slanted rays of the setting sun coming through the trees. Right above the clump of vegetation just beyond our outdoor shower, there were perhaps two dozen insects fluttering straight up and down as if they were on a string being manipulated by a master puppeteer. The thin wings of these creatures fluttered white as they caught the sun's rays; for a moment I thought that they were bits of fluff -- perhaps from the Baccharis or Marsh Elder (whose seed plumes are starting to expand and scatter in the wind like dandelion or thistle). But no seed plumes scattering in the wind would travel straight up and down.. My next thought is that they were moths but, as far as I could see (they were in constant motion and hard to focus with or without the binoculars), they had elongated bodies (abdomens would be the proper term I imagine) like some kind of mayfly. Even when I ran outside right below their bush, I could not make out any more details. In fact, as these little creatures left their stage light one by one, they seemed to vanish altogether and I couldn't even find them on the leaves or branches of the bushes into which they seemed to disappear. The late afternoon sunlight and the opening above the bush provided the stage for this solemn dance display; otherwise these mites were invisible and anonymous.