Common Grackle at Lake Martin

If you want to see a common grackle, Wind Creek State Park is a good place to start looking. That’s because these distinctive black birds are highly adapted to life around people and are very good at raiding campsites for food. Wind Creek is known for having one of the highest numbers of modern campsites – 586 – among all U.S. state parks. In fact, these photos of common grackles were all taken at Wind Creek, some in campsites and some of the birds were caught eating pieces of bread supplied by campers.

Roughly the size of a robin, common grackles are lanky birds with long legs and a long tail. This bird appears totally black until you look closer and see that it has a purple-blue head and a bronze-black or green-black body. Grackles have a long, pointed gray bill, long gray legs and a bright yellow-gold eye that stands out from the dark head. Males are slightly larger than females and may be more iridescent than the females.