Oh My! That's them! Thanks so much. It has driven me nuts for the last few weeks wondering what they were so I could curse them appropriately. What a pest of a bird! I swore I was going to chop down that one tree in the parking lot of the River Walk hotel in which I was staying, but after checking my wallet, I realized I didn't have enough bail money on me. :o) Peace In a message dated 3/18/01 7:02:31 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > Probably you saw Grackles. Did the larger birds - the males, have a sort of purple iridescent neck/head area? > > http://www.ashlists.org/temp/grackle.jpg > > http://www.ashlists.org/temp/grackle2.jpg > > The females are less black...they are more brownish-black with no iridescent crown. > > Generally a nuisance bird for backyard birders. They tend to make a lot of noise and chase the song birds away. However, the mockingbirds, albeit smaller, take no guff from them. I've seen mockingbirds take no quarter from grackles and chase them all over the neighbor. If you see a grackle with it's tail missing, it was probably a mockingbird that bit it off. :-)
