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by the black birds for roosting and nesting.
In preparation for this column, I decided to do some research on grackles with a two-pronged purpose: would I learn something that would help me with the grackle dilemma? Also, is there anything of a positive nature I could report?
For the latter, grackles do eat Japanese beetles, that imported critter that causes so many problems in the vegetable garden. That’s it, I fear, for good news of grackles.
Grackles are omnivorous; they will eat anything. This includes eggs and young of other birds; they have been known to even kill and eat the introduced house sparrow (maybe that is in their favor).
Besides consuming many kinds of seeds and insects, grackles eat peas, strawberries, and cherries, along with salamanders, crayfish, minnows, and mice. The big black birds have even been observed snatching flying bats out of the air!
The problem of man and grackles is not new. The following was written in the early part of the last century:
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