Flocking Together.

4-3-15 SHORT HILLS: A couple days in the sixties, one sunny and one with rain, do a lot to make the snow go away. Also a few crocuses are forming flower buds. I walked around the yard with the walker yesterday on the flats, any slope is difficult to manage. Things are a mess, and I can’t do any clean-up, very frustrating.


Grackles are black birds that are iridescent in the sun. This one seems to be scowling. The one in back of the feeder is in shadow and not iridescent.

This one has a purplish head instead of the blue above and below. These colors remind me of the colors from a drop of oil or gas on wet pavement.

Grackle in front of an immature Red-wing Blackbird. The two species usually show up at the same times, do they travel together?

Mature Red-wing Blackbird showing the bicolored epaulet. Both species have black legs and beaks, but the Grackles have yellow eyes and the Red-wing Blackbirds have dark eyes.