SO DISTRACTED

[elainegrey]

First, it's snowing again, since around 7:30. Big lovely flakes, some as big as feathers.

The first visitors to the feeder and scattered seed were the usual suspects. I didn't get around to removng the screen or washing the window, so i wasn't being obsessive about observations.

Then the grackles showed up. At least 40. They're so spooky, all of them rising with a thunder of wingbeats any time i move too quickly. Edward is in the kitchen watching from that window, so perhaps he is also spooking them.

Crows have followed the grackles, although not in the large numbers.

Huh. They've left. The mixed flock of songbirds mush have been waiting in another tree, because sparrows, juncos and chickadees are all back, feeding in the azalea just outside the window. Go to the feeder, little birds! (The feeder is in the light and i can focus the binoculars at that distance.)

Wait, grackles are back.

Comments

[yourlibrarian]

We tend to see grackles in the summer but once we start setting food out again I daresay some might turn up here too.

I love seeing those slow big flake snows :)

[oakmouse]

Grackles are strange birds; they seem to be kind of like giant starlings with a hive mind. I'd never seen them before we moved to Maryland about ten years ago. They're interesting to watch, though.

[gurdonark]

Here we get the Great=Tailed Grackles sometimes and the Common Grackles sometimes, but more often the Northern Cardinals, Dark-Eyed Juncos, House Sparrows, and sometimes a Carolina Chickadee or two.

How many inches of snow did y'all get?

[elainegrey]

When the grackles cleared out, i was able to identify fox sparrows. There were some other slightly smaller sparrows too but i couldn't quite ID them. In the afternoon, after i had closed my eBird list, there was a tufted titmouse, too.

I haven't seen many house sparrows here, though.

I suppose you weren't far enough north to catch the snow. 10 inches in Lubbock! I would have guessed that wouldn't be too unusual with arctic air masses dropping down through the Plains, but it sounds dramatic.