Boat-tailed Grackle Identification

The Four Keys to ID

• Size & Shape

  Boat-tailed Grackles are large, lanky songbirds with rounded crowns, long legs, and fairly long, pointed bills. Males have very long tails that make up almost half their body length and that they typically hold folded in a V-shape, like the keel of a boat.

  Relative Size

  Smaller than a Fish Crow; larger than a Common Grackle.

  between robin and crow

  Measurements

  • Both Sexes
  • • Length: 10.2-14.6 in (26-37 cm)
    • Weight: 3.3-8.4 oz (93-239 g)
    • Wingspan: 15.3-19.7 in (39-50 cm)

  © Marie Chappell / Macaulay Library

• Color Pattern

  Males are glossy black all over. Females are dark brown above and russet below, with a subtle face pattern made up of a pale eyebrow, dark cheek, and pale “mustache” stripe. Eye color ranges from dull brown along the western Gulf Coast to bright yellow along the Atlantic Coast.

• Behavior

  These scrappy blackbirds are supreme omnivores, feeding on everything from seeds and human food scraps to crustaceans scavenged from the shoreline.
• Habitat

  Boat-tailed Grackles are a strictly coastal species through most of their range; however, they live across much of the Florida peninsula, often well away from the immediate coast.

Regional Differences

Along the western Gulf Coast, Boat-tailed Grackles have dull, brownish eyes. Along the Atlantic Coast and the Gulf Coast west to Mississippi, Boat-tailed Grackles have bright yellow eyes.

Regional Photos

© Jeffrey Moore / Macaulay LibraryFlorida, April 07, 2008

© Marie Chappell / Macaulay LibraryFlorida, March 23, 2016

© Patrick J. Blake / Macaulay LibraryFlorida, October 11, 2016