By: Rey Wells
I was driving in the village of Salem, New York one morning in June. I was about to climb to a scenic overlook, but two birds just ahead on the side of the road caused me to stop. They turned out to be this male grackle and one of his recently fledged offspring.
Common Grackles are mostly seed eaters in the off season. But during the breeding cycle they include a wide variety of animals in their diet and that of their offspring. Allaboutbirds.org lists some of them. It does not mention the one that you are about to see. If you are a bit squeamish, you might want to skip the remaining two photos. The next one shows the male about to extract another bit from a small snake that it will feed to the young one. Here it is. I probably won’t be able to resist adding this photo to our show, “Birds in Action.”
In the third photo, dad is feeding a morsel (not visible) to the fledgling.
