It was at the Nature Discovery Center I found out they were grackles. I'd always just called em blackbirds. I was not sure until that moment that they weren't crows.
Yeah, they're junk birds.
Excuse me?
Junk birds. They serve no purpose.
Nature Discovery.
They've pretty much supplanted the pigeons since I was a kid-- I can't tell you the last time I saw a pigeon. Generally there are a few in the parking lot doing the job the pigeons used to do. They clean up food scraps and whatnot. In the winter, though, their numbers swell. They cover the bare trees and telephone wires. They can be agressive in numbers. If they are filling a tree I personally give it a wide berth-- I've seen them dive bomb people. Sometimes for some reason they will attack people who aren't even all that close. Swooping in to bloody a head or two trying to enter a coffee shop.
