More and more landed on the suet feeders until their weight brought the entire pole to the ground. Hanging with their feet from the wire cages they snatched at the tasty food, twisting and swinging above the other members of their tribe. Several of the hungry scavengers found two hanging suet feeders and attacked it all at once. I settled in for about 20 minutes of observing the flock’s movements about the property and grabbed a notebook to record their antics.Īt first two or three birds, like vanguard troops, silently dropped from the tree to explore the ground under the feeder, and then all at once the rest came down to forage the ground for seed remnants and bugs. At first I thought we were being invaded by a large flock of starlings, but a quick scan with my binoculars determined they were common grackles. That day I looked up to see the red oak completely filled with blackbirds. It is high enough from the ground to discourage squirrels but within our reach for refilling with sunflower seeds. A tall red oak stands guard over the yard and a large bird feeder hangs from one of its long branches. We have a large back yard with a few trees and mostly open ground. I was reminded of this event two weeks ago when our yard was invaded by approximately 200 common grackles. According to the article, a roost of that size is not actually a big roost and an estimated winter roost at Fort Cobb, Oklahoma in 1972 was estimated at 2 million crows! You can find the Hartford Courant article by Gregory Hladky online at: This huge winter roost of crows even made the Hartford Courant and the flock was estimated to be 19,000 birds. We looked at each other and started recounting scenes from “The Birds,” the famous horror film by Alfred Hitchcock. What was flying over the highway that day in Harford was like nothing we had ever experienced. A few years before hundreds of crows had taken up winter residence near the post office in our hometown Putnam, so I have seen large numbers of crows roosting together before. We had crossed the Connecticut River and were through the city when suddenly the sky was full, and I mean full as in filled with thousands of crows. ![]() Two years ago my wife Julie and I were driving through Hartford on the way to visit our daughter in West Hartford.
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