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

Harriman Lake in Jeffco had huge flocks of blackbirds coming in to roost this evening. The flock included at least 200 Common Grackles, 250 Red-winged Blackbirds, 750 European Starlings, 33 Brewer's Blackbirds (counted on the rocks at waters edge) and at least 1 Brown-headed Cowbird. My dog wouldn't let me stop long enough to do more than estimate on anything but the BRBLs that didn't flush as she dragged me along the trail.  

Chip Clouse
Lakewood

On Sep 11, 2016 8:53 PM, "David Suddjian" <dsuddjian@gmail.com> wrote:

On the Grackle theme, on the morning of 9/10 I watched an estimated 2,500 Common Grackles moving past St. Mary Catholic Church and Lee Gulch at South Prince Street in Littleton, Arapahoe Co. They were all going SE in a more or less steady stream of flocks over 45 min. 

The local breeders had departed some time ago, and I'm sure these were part of a migratory movement. Most of them showed tail feathers in heavy molt. I did not see a similar movement at the same time period this morning, and these were much larger numbers that I happened to have seen over the St. Mary area in the past two Septembers. 

There is a rather large roost of migrants at this time of year SE and near C470 x Santa Fe (Douglas Co.), but that is about 2.5 miles south and the wrong direction for the birds I saw passing on 9/10, plus that roost flies out shortly after sunrise, about 1.5 hours earlier than my observation on 9/10. 

David Suddjian

Ken Caryl Valley

Littleton, CO

On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 4:07 PM, Charles Hundertmark <chundertmark8@gmail.com> wrote:

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

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