Measurements
Both Sexes
- Length
- 10.2–14.6 in
26–37 cm - Wingspan
- 15.4–19.7 in
39–50 cm - Weight
- 3.3–8.4 oz
93–239 g
Other Names
- Quiscale des marais (French)
- Tordo cola ancha (Spanish)
Cool Facts
- Eye color in the Boat-tailed Grackle varies from region to region. Grackles along the Atlantic coast north of Florida have straw-colored eyes. Florida birds have dark eyes. Grackles west of Florida to eastern Louisiana have light eyes, but those further west have dark ones.
- Fledglings that fall into the water can swim well for short distances, using their wings as paddles.
- The Boat-tailed Grackle has an odd mating system: harem defense polygyny. Females cluster their nests, and the males compete to defend the entire colony and mate there. The most dominant male gets most of the copulations in a system similar to that used by many deer. But all is not as simple as it seems. Although the dominant male may get up to 87% of the copulations at a colony, DNA fingerprinting shows that he actually sires only about 25% of the young in the colony. Most of the young are fathered by noncolony males away from the colonies.
Habitat
Marsh
Found in freshwater and salt marshes, open upland habitats, cities, and agricultural fields, usually near the coast. Nests in marshes.
Food
Omnivore
Omnivorous. Invertebrates, frogs, grain, fruit, garbage.
Nesting
Nesting Facts
- Clutch Size
- 1–5 eggs
- Egg Description
- Light blue, covered with brown and black scrawls, often concentrated at large end.
- Condition at Hatching
- Helpless with sparse brown down.
Nest Description
Nest is an open cup of grass, lined with soft materials such as Spanish moss, wool, leaves, and feathers. Nest placed in reeds or small shrubs, often over water.
Nest Placement
Tree
Behavior
Ground Forager
Walks on ground and picks up food items, turns over stones with bill, sticks bill into grass or dirt and opens it to expose prey.Roosts communally all year long.
Conservation
Least Concern
Common; numbers stable.
Credits
- Post, W., J. P. Poston, and G. T. Bancroft. 1996. Boat-tailed Grackle (Quiscalus major). In The Birds of North America, No. 271 (A. Poole and F. Gill, eds.). The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, PA, and The American Ornithologists' Union, Washington, D.C.