Grackles, owls offer birder's delight

CORPUS CHRISTI - As I stepped out my front door, a piercing explosion of sound and black feathers crashed into the morning.

It was as if a magician waving his wand, had caused a large black bird to appear, emit a shrill, loud, attention-getting sound, and double in size. As it got larger, it expanded its glossy, violet-iridescent, black feathered body. It stood tiptoe, extending its pointed bill skyward, and focusing its yellow eyes on two other male grackles standing about two inches in front of it.

A large, crow-sized bird, this great-tailed grackle was showing off. Bands of this species cross our lawns every day, visiting and feeding. This is a social species and some people do not admire it, finding it loud and messy. I like these tail-heavy birds. They obviously think well of themselves.

The female is much less spectacular. She is a lighter brown color and lacks the large tail. A group of females observed these males from several feet away, not seeming to pay much attention to the show, but probably not missing a trick either.

Great-tailed grackles have not always been so common here. They arrived about 1964. People called them jackdaws, a nickname. I remember watching them bathe and luxuriate in the fountain in front of the old courthouse. Now, as then, they like water and are attracted to it. The ones outside my door spotted an invitation. Someone had left water running in my neighborhood, and filled the gutter.

They were soon dipping in and throwing water under lifted wings. Avoiding hills, mountains, waterless deserts, and heavily wooded areas, the great tailed grackle is a bird of the plains. They are omnivorous eaters and frequent urban and suburban lawns and gardens.

In other birding news:

I went by Naomi Linzer's house on Sage Brush Drive to try to see the baby horned owl she had reported being seen again in her neighborhood. The adult birds had nested this spring in the same palm tree, across the street, which they used several years ago.

Naomi saw me, driving by, trying to get my bearings, and offered to be my guide. The fuzzy baby and its mother were perched in a large ash tree in her backyard. No one had seen the young bird fly and it was still wearing downy, baby feathers. The mother gave me a dirty look and flew off but the owlet stayed, perched over head, to be admired.

I recently received a book from a publisher for review that I would recommend as a perfect gift for a child or adult who is getting started in birding. "The Young Birder's Guide to Birds of North America," by Bill Thompson III, is a handy, well written, and well thought out field guide. Thompson is the editor of the magazine "The Bird Watcher's Digest." Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, the book is a Peterson Field Guide. It tells everything a new birder could want to know and its size makes it convenient to carry.