Grackles Galore

BirdNote^®
Grackles Galore
Written by Ariana Remmel

This is BirdNote.

     [Common Grackle]

Grackles are notoriously loud and brazen birds. For all six species native to the Americas, males are iridescent black and females are sumptuous brown. You can hear the roaring calls of Common Grackles in the eastern U.S. and Canada.

     [Common Grackle]

Great-tailed Grackles make their own distinctive ruckus, gathering in the tens of thousands from parking lots in California to coastal Ecuador.

     [Flock of Great-tailed Grackle]

But other grackles are pickier about their habitat — like the Boat-tailed Grackle, found in tidal zones along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts of the U.S.

     [Boat-tailed Grackle]

Or the Nicaraguan Grackle that sticks close to the shores of Lake Nicaragua and Lake Managua in Central America.

     [Nicaraguan Grackle]

In the Caribbean, the Greater Antillean Grackle and Carib Grackle abound.

     [Carib Grackle]

Sadly, there used to be a seventh. Before its extinction in the mid-1900s, the Slender-billed Grackle once thrived in marshes surrounding Mexico City. The last birder to hear one in the wild said their call was like that of a Common Grackle, a bird in steep decline today.

Though some deem them pests, grackles can also call us to celebrate the delightful diversity of “common” birds.

     [Common Grackle]

For BirdNote, I’m Ariana Remmel.

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Senior Producer: Mark Bramhill
Producer: Sam Johnson
Managing Editor: Jazzi Johnson
Managing Producer: Ariana Remmel
Content Director: Jonese Franklin
Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Carib Grackle ML498504151 recorded by Miguel Aguilar. Greater Antillean Grackle ML358656781 recorded by Gary Rosenberg. Nicaraguan Grackle ML31905871 recorded by Andrew Spencer. Boat-tailed Grackle ML225938 recorded by Bob McGuire. Great-tailed Grackle ML286768381 recorded by Blaine Carnes. Common Grackle ML306233 recorded by David L. Ross, Jr.. Common Grackle ML615563286 recorded by James R. Hill, III.
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2025 BirdNote June 2025
Narrator: Ariana Remmel

ID# grackle-01-2025-06-09    grackle-01

Reference:
https://ebird.org/checklist/S12400398