[cobirds] Large (very) flocks of blackbirds, Frederick, Weld County

Since Frederick High School is a brand new building I decided to enter all bird sightings into ebird.  We first noticed a large movement of blackbirds moving east about a mile north of the school.  We watched the flock for 30 minutes non-stop.  Later in the day, I looked out my classroom window and our courtyard was full of Common Grackles.  Not to let a teachable moment pass I set some students a counting.  I then dispatched students to windows facing west and north to start counting.  After tallies, we came up with a total of 5000 Common Grackle.

Later on we noticed a different flock of birds moving from the south side of the school heading northwest.  These turned out to be European Starlings.  We set to estimating and came up with 100 birds passing every ten seconds for seven minutes.  4200 if you didn't do the math.

Another interesting sighting was a lone Cooper's Hawk trying to catch up with the mass of swirling grackles and having no luck.

One of my students suggested that with all our huge parcels of turf and pouring rain today brought munchies up for all the birds.?

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Todd Deininger
Longmont, CO

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