Summer is the perfect season to photograph colorful birds.

Common Grackles
common grackle © Dr. Thomas G. Barnes, USFWS
This species is the largest member of the blackbird clan that regularly occurs in Massachusetts. Long-tailed and gregarious, grackles are hard to miss whenever they are present, as their feathers shine with iridescence and their piercing voices creak and whine across suburban Massachusetts. These adaptable birds can turn up in almost any habitat.

Identification
Grackles of both sexes are entirely shiny black, with patches of green and purple gloss. Their slightly-downcurved bills are long and dark, and their pale eyes stand out at quite some distance. The best field mark for separating grackles from other blackbirds and similar species like starlings is the tail. Grackles have long, wedge-shaped tails that are especially visible in flight. Grackles are also quite large, exceeding a foot in length from bill to tail.

Behavior
Common grackles are gregarious and highly vocal birds. They can often be seen foraging on lawns or sitting on fences during spring and summer in suburban areas, uttering sharp chak notes or else singing their grating, rusty-hinge song. They also routinely inhabit shrubby areas and swamps.

In fall, grackles gather into large flocks before migration at communal roosts, some of which can be impressively massive (as many as one million birds!). Most grackles migrate a short distance south to pass the winter, but some few opt to brave the storms each year, often mixed with flocks of other blackbirds.