Grackle News

Common Grackle - 1/24/06
Photo by Lincoln Karim

Knowing my interest in grackles, Rebekah Creshkoff, founder of the New York City Audubon's Safe Flight project, sent in the following report two day's ago

About 200 grackles materialized at NW end of Loch at about 7:50 am. At 8:20, saw about 100 in the park west of the West Drive near the North end of the Reservoir. Did some grackle counting this weekend -- about 100 each time.

Clearly there are still large numbers of these birds in Central Park, though they are considered migratory birds, thought to leave no later than November, and though their annual return in late February has long been considered the first sign of the coming Spring.

What gives? Global warming?

P.S. I thought that the grackles weren't roosting at the Grand Army Plaza any more. This morning in the North Woods, Rebekah C. and I ran into Veronica, a Trump Parc hawkwatcher [and neighbor of the hawk nest] who works at Bergdorf Goodman's. That department store, you may recall, looks out on the Pulitzer Fountain and the ten Bradford Callery Pear trees that surround it. She has promised to send me an e-mail telling the story she told me this morning. I will then post it on this website. But in advance I'll summarize: A VERY large bunch of grackles are still roosting at the fountain every night.