Hi all,


   Few minutes ago, my sister and I just witnessed a
massive grackle/blackbird flocks which devours
anything in its path. Many thousands in corn stubble
fields and hundreds attacked three dogwood trees wiped
out half of berries on it. This entire show lasted 29
minutes before they left toward NNE. During that time,
of those 4 Redtails migrating through, one just took a
dive at a grackle flocks in the fields and miss its
prey. There are other raptors migrating through just
to the south of our front yard, beyond the corn
stubble fields. 
   Quickly set up scope on my driveway next to my
truck scanning the flocks which come and go for
several minutes, out of 85,000+ Common Grackle, there
are 892 European Starling, 791 Red-winged Blackbirds,
49 Rusty Blackbirds, 2 Brewer's Blackbird (a pair) & 7
American Pipits which joined the flock. Strange that
there are no cowbirds, not a single one in this
impressive flocks. Almost anywhere I go, I seen some
cowbirds among them. 
   The Brewers which is easy to spot compare to
several rusty around them, male has whitish eye, thick
glossy black and his mate have dull-grayish brown with
black eyes. *****The problem is that we don't see
Rusty Blackbirds in a big flock on fields.*****  
Their main habitat was near water like wooded swamp.  
   Few days ago there was a small grackle flocks on
the fields, there was a some cowbirds and rusty
blackbirds along with red-winged blackbirds and
starlings.

   Earlier this morning, I was out hunting for
Black-capped that my mother heard couple days ago.
None around, all 7 are Carolina. Will look again this
afternoon. 


     Kevin Graff
     Jarrettsville, MD & Ocean City, MD
     



	
		
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