Re: [cobirds] Common Grackle movements in Lafayette, Boulder County

Like Chuck, I have noticed a lot of new activity with grackles at Grandview Cemetery.  After seeing none for months, I watched 4 very quietly foraging in the very top of a cone-laden spruce in crossbill wannebe mode.  My take was they were getting green seeds from this year's cones.  Then yesterday a real invasion occurred of over 50, and as best I could tell they also stayed in the spruce trees, but rather than go up in the tops where the cones were, they rifled thru American elm and cottonwood leaves lodged in the spruce boughs.  Not sure what they were finding in the dry, curled up leaves but I suspect creatures that hide in such plant niches like earwigs and maybe daddylonglegs (harvestmen) and true spiders.  Today in Wellington and at the Wyoming Hereford Ranch, many birds, including grackles were feasting on the recent outpouring of sod webworm moths (the actual one we are seeing has the colorful common name of the "vagabond crambus moth").  Other birds eating these moths for sure today were House Sparrows, European Starlings, American Robins and Brewer's Blackbirds.  At Grandview Cemetery in Fort Collins, birds I observed getting these small, slender, tan moths with long labial palps ("snout") were Gray Flycatcher, Western Wood-Pewee, Wilson's Warblers, Chipping Sparrows (by the dozens of moths per bird per hour), Green-tailed Towhee, and Northern Flicker.

Dave Leatherman

Fort Collins

---

From: cobirds@googlegroups.com <cobirds@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Charles Hundertmark <chundertmark8@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, September 11, 2016 4:07 PM
To: Cobirds
Subject: [cobirds] Common Grackle movements in Lafayette, Boulder County

 

This afternoon, we had a large flock of Common Grackles in our front yard - not a particularly exciting bird for list purposes, but an interesting phenomenon. For about a week or so now, I’ve been noting flocks of 100-200 grackles moving through the neighborhood. They are feeding vigorously and moving on quickly. Interestingly, many of them are molting. I’m wondering if the grackles undergo a molt migration in the fashion that Ted Floyd has so insightfully informed us about for Chipping Sparrows.

Chuck Hundertmark
Lafayette, CO
303-604-0531

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to cobirds+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to cobirds@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/81407853-9AEE-4453-BF8F-BE781DD4307E%40gmail.com.

Google Groups groups.google.com Google Groups allows you to create and participate in online forums and email-based groups with a rich experience for community conversations.

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.