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Updated: May 10, 2025
They fly in pairs often and in the evenings they cling prettily to the catnip by the pasture fence, digging into each calyx for its four sweet nutlets. The woodthrush has a late nest in a young elm; her first family was eaten by the blue-jays just after the hatching, so were the young grosbeaks in a nearby tree, but the cedar waxwings were slain and eaten by the cannibalistic grackles.
Or is it the excellent opportunity for social life offered by this convenient apartment-house that attracts? The purple grackles are a garrulous, gossipy set, as every one knows. They are able-bodied, not particularly fond of fish, and inclined to seek the neighborhood of man, rather than to come out here away from him. They make very good American rooks.
When the great herds of ruminants disappear from the western prairies, the buffalo birds without hesitation become cowbirds, and when the plough turns up the never-ending store of grubs and worms the birds lose all fear and follow at the very heels of the plough-boy: grackles, vesper sparrows, and larks in the east, and flocks of gulls farther to the westward.
Off they raced again, now on the trim gravel walks, now on the springy dew-laden turf, frightening a myriad of insects from their shelters as the pair brushed aside protruding shrubbery and brought a chorus of reproof from rusty-plumed grackles who were gathering in the open spaces for the long migration south.
Some strange noise, "bird or devil," came from the depths of the wood. A flock of grackles settled in a tall cypress, and for a time made the place loud. How still it was after they were gone! I could hardly withdraw my gaze from the green water full of slimy black roots and branches, any one of which might suddenly lift its head and open its deadly white mouth!
Noisy boat-tailed grackles, or "jackdaws," were plentiful about the lakeside, monstrously long in the tail, and almost as large as the fish crows, which were often there with them.
The third warm day, and, behold, all the principal performers come rushing in, song sparrows, cow blackbirds, grackles, the meadowlark, cedar-birds, the phbe-bird, and, hark! what bird laughter was that? the robins, hurrah! the robins!
This huge nest of the fish-hawks was more than a nest; it was a castle in very truth, in the sheltering crevices of whose uneven walls a small community of purple grackles lived. Wedged in among the protruding sticks was nest above nest, plastering the great pile over, making it almost grassy with their loose flying ends.
In swarms the blackbirds arose from the swale and came flocking to the interior, with a clamoring cry: "T'CHECK, T'CHECK." Grackles marshaled to the tribal call: "TRALL-A-HEE, TRALL-A-HEE." Red-winged blackbirds swept low, calling to belated mates: "FOL-LOW-ME, FOL-LOW-ME." Big, jetty crows gathered close to her, crying, as if warning her to flee before it was everlastingly too late.
"Well, for one who pokes into other people's affairs as you do, you don't know much. The Orioles and the Meadow Larks and the Grackles and the Bobolinks all belong to the Blackbird family. They're all related to Redwing the Blackbird, and Sally Sly the Cowbird belongs in the same family." Peter gasped. "I I hadn't the least idea that any of these folks were related," stammered Peter.
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