Thanks to those who took a look at my odd black bird. 

The consensus is that this is a bronzed grackle, although somewhat small.  Before I started comparing sizes, I too thought it was a grackle.  

I just had a flock of Grackles fly into the feeder, along with a red-winged blackbird and a starling.  So, again, another size comparison.  Most of them are notably bigger than the redwing, and some are probably 3 inches bigger, as my book suggests.  But many are just slightly bigger than the red winged blackbird.  So I've recalibrated my brain, and won't be thinking that grackles have to be 12" in order to be "grackles".  There are some birds here, clearly grackles, that are probably 9.5 - 10 inches, which is right where my bird-of-interest fits.  There's a continuum of sizes.  

So, I'm now quite happy with the BRONZED GRACKLE at my feeder yesterday.  

I'm curious, however, if the smaller ones would be juveniles or females, or just smaller birds along a continuum. 

It's fun to learn!

joanne