By Staff
I have a dilemma that in a lifetime of feeding birds I've never encountered before. A gang of thug grackles are taking over my Feather Inn restaurant. Like a ruthless street gang, they showed up and with their rude, aggressive, raucous behavior are one by one driving away my regular customers.
Their relentless pillaging of food is causing my overhead to skyrocket, forcing me to limit the menu and services resulting in further customer loss. The authorities say the grackles are breaking no laws so I have no recourse. I cannot legally take up arms against them, even though their intimidation tactics are causing great pain and suffering amongst my customers and their dependent children. I'm at wits end.
They first targeted my suet cake buffet. Everything had been going so wonderful there. I took great joy in the constant flow of red-bellied, downy and hairy woodpeckers and, for the first time ever, two gorgeous red-headed woodpeckers. Then came the big, burly grackles, physically driving these customers from the premises. And the grackle's manners were horrible. They wouldn't just stop by for a bite. They would get on the suet and gouge out big chunks, letting them all fall to the ground. Then they would hop down and gorge themselves.
As the gang's numbers increased they developed the tactic of all gathering underneath the suet while a designated member relentlessly carved away at the suet cake, the pieces raining down to the members below. In just an hour or two the suet would be gone and they'd move on to other entrees on the buffet, those disappearing equally fast.
I hoped that if I temporarily quit serving suet the gang would move on and my regular customers would return. No such luck. Nearly all my customers have specialized diets; the woodpeckers, suet; rose-breasted grosbeaks and cardinals, sunflower seeds; most of the finches, nuthatches, titmice, song sparrows and such, mixed seed. The grackles, however, have evolved to be the consummate survivors of the bird world. They eat anything and everything with equal relish. Grain is high on their list with corn being at the top, both the developing ears and newly sprouting plants. When gathered in immense flocks as they sometimes do they are the number one threat to corn crops. As if trying to atone for this sin, they balance out their carb meal with large quantities of crop damaging insects. They're gourmands and will wade for minnows and other aquatic creatures, even plucking leeches from turtle's legs if the turtle itself is too big to kill. They steal worms from robins and raid other bird's nests for eggs and hatchlings. For snacks they have a hard keel on the inside of their upper bill to saw apart acorns and other hard shelled nuts. They consider garbage a special treat. Their sporting pleasures include killing and eating lesser adult birds, mice and other small animals. When I cut off the suet supply they simply switched over to the sunflower and mixed seed without batting an eye.
The grackle's family tree includes cowbirds, meadowlarks, bobolinks and all the blackbirds, which here in Michigan include the red-winged, rusty and Brewer's blackbirds. Though ashamed of it, orioles are also family members. When I was growing up they were called purple grackles and bronze grackles, depending on their coloration. Since then it has been determined they are one and the same, just two different color phases, and are now lumped together under the name common grackle. They inhabit all states east of the Rockies. Those east of the Appalachians are mostly a deep, iridescent purple. Those west of the Appalachians and in the New England states have a purple head and iridescent bronze body.
Whatever their color I wish they'd leave my establishment alone. If this keeps up the Feather Inn will soon be forced into bankruptcy. Hmmm, if I could get some bailout money they would appoint a Feeder Czar who would then deem it necessary for the Feds take over filling of the feeders. Just might work. Carpe diem.