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are these new young! They are as big as their parents but lack the iridescence and baleful yellow eyes. I watched a fledging grackle on the platform bird feeder for a time yesterday. He picked up bits of cracked corn for himself until a parent landed nearby. Then he became a quivering, seemingly helpless individual as he fluttered his wings and begged for food with clacking food calls.
On this morning, the first day of summer, an adult lands in the driveway and is immediately joined by two great fledgings, trembling and begging for food. The young are insistent and persistent; they sound piteous. Adults seem unable to ignore their cries for food. Thus has nature provided for the continuation of grackle life.
Past experience tells me that later the adults will be vicious and unrelenting in driving away the young that will then be perceived as competitors for food. When the young can feed themselves, the grackles will form large flocks and roam the countryside until time for them to move south.
I can’t say I will miss the grackles; I am tired of their aggressive numbers. For now, however, the back yard is filled with the food calls of young grackles which their parents seem unable to satisfy.
A pair of Cardinals has had unusual success in fledging three young. Two is considered a high level of reproduction. I did not find the nest; no doubt it was in the honeysuckle tangle behind this property.
The three adolescents resemble the female except for their dark-colored bills and wispy crests. They hang
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