A LOT of birds!

Sunday morning when I got up I looked out the window to see about 900 black birds in my yard. Took a photo through the window and then got a video of the birds taking flight. I thought I was in an Alfred Hitchcock movie for a minute there.

Here is a photo of the birds in my front yard:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/54092207@N08/5098641484/" title="BIRDS by happylabs35, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4088/5098641484_431756e9f1.jpg"

...and the video:

<iframe title="YouTube video player" class="youtube-player" type="text/html" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/qseWP2bezU8" frameborder="0"></iframe>

Did you get a close look? Were they grackles or crows or do you know? Grackles tend to travel in huge flocks, and as they are not native here, are regarded as pests by many people.

Kinda creepy! I used to like crows until I saw on trying to kill a baby duck! I didn't know they did that! :eek:Poor baby was all bloody in his mouth :( I scared the crow away and the poor duckling was panting. I thought it might have a heart attack! He ran away under some shrubs :(

Wow!:eek: We have big black crows here and I can't stand them. They make so much noise and are so messy too. We used to not have very many but it seems like they've multiplied over the years. Sorry if I offended any bird lovers. I didn't mean to.:o

Ha ha! Just like the movie! I think I'd have been freaked out by that!:D

Yes, that happens every year here in autumn and it is rather scary. As Karen said, they're usually grackles, too, but sometimes they're smaller birds, wrens, I think.

Birds of a feather flock together for real. Flocks of blackbirds usually include crows, common grackles (sometimes but rarely boat-tail grackles), red-winged blackbirds, cowbirds, and sometimes, but not usually starlings (they usually do their own things). The birds in the picture look like grackles to me (long tails). Can't view the video here but will look when I get home.

Crows are incredible birds. The are predators when the opportunity presents itself. Opportunistic feeders is the best label. They were probably killing the duck because it was already ill. Definately not nice to see but that is nature. Unfortunately when you interrupt something like that the duck gets away to spend the rest of the day (or perhaps longer) to die and the crow's babies do not get any food. I believe that unless you plan on rescuing the duck and caring for it, nature should take its course. Nature is harsh.

Crows gather in big flocks at a meeting places and "discuss" the goings on in the area, then they disperse and do their thing. They use tools and have been shown to think out situations from beginning to end result. When kept in captivity they can mimic human speech and other sounds. I know one fromt he Bird Sanctuary named Jeffery who is fabulous. He is my "boyfriend" and when I walk into his enclosure he says "Whoa!" in a sexy voice, then asks for head scratches. There was another who has since passed on called Josephine and when I would approach her I always said "How's my good girl!" After a few weeks of this, when she saw me she would say "Goo Girl!" I think that was her name for me. . .:D

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Originally Posted by Catherinedana

Birds of a feather flock together for real. Flocks of blackbirds usually include crows, common grackles (sometimes but rarely boat-tail grackles), red-winged blackbirds, cowbirds, and sometimes, but not usually starlings (they usually do their own things). The birds in the picture look like grackles to me (long tails). Can't view the video here but will look when I get home.

Crows are incredible birds. The are predators when the opportunity presents itself. Opportunistic feeders is the best label. They were probably killing the duck because it was already ill. Definately not nice to see but that is nature. Unfortunately when you interrupt something like that the duck gets away to spend the rest of the day (or perhaps longer) to die and the crow's babies do not get any food. I believe that unless you plan on rescuing the duck and caring for it, nature should take its course. Nature is harsh.

Crows gather in big flocks at a meeting places and "discuss" the goings on in the area, then they disperse and do their thing. They use tools and have been shown to think out situations from beginning to end result. When kept in captivity they can mimic human speech and other sounds. I know one fromt he Bird Sanctuary named Jeffery who is fabulous. He is my "boyfriend" and when I walk into his enclosure he says "Whoa!" in a sexy voice, then asks for head scratches. There was another who has since passed on called Josephine and when I would approach her I always said "How's my good girl!" After a few weeks of this, when she saw me she would say "Goo Girl!" I think that was her name for me. . .:D

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That is so interesting! I had no idea that crows mimicked like that. Wow.

I think they were grackles. We get a lot of them in Pennsylvania where I live. The really cool thing that I did not get on tape was the sound of them when they all took off all at once. It sounded like a jet taking off...whoooosh! Actually, I wasn't freaked out. I thought it was pretty cool. There must have been something delicious in my grass, or, they may have been eating grass seed. I think grass goes to seed in the fall/winter? I just had the lawn mowed about a week ago.

If they come back when I am home this weekend I will try to get another video of them taking off and get the sound of it.

Here's the culprit !!!!

http://i970.photobucket.com/albums/a...hitchcock2.jpg

I raised a baby grackle that I found once. He was a pretty cool bird, and very smart. I released him back into the wild.

I have also raised several baby starlings. One of them would not leave, and ended up living in the house for years. He said probably a couple hundred words. Unlike parrots, that have to be taught by repitition, birds of the corvid family (mynah birds, crows, starlings, etc.) simply learn on their own. I never tried to teach him anything, he just heard something he liked and started saying it. In fact, he refused to learn things I tried to teach him. I wanted him to say "Nevermore." No way. However, he learned to say, "This is National Public Radio, Talk of the Nation" all on his own, from hearing it on the radio a few times. He could also sing the first few lines of Bruce Springsteen's "Nebraska" after hearing it a couple of times. That really freaked people out! They also speak in a perfect imitation of the voice they hear. My starling could scold the dogs or call my son, and he sounded so identical to me, that they dogs slunk away abashed and my son would always come downstairs saying, "What, Mom?"

True, they are not native species, and therefore not protected. They are hard on some native birds ... starlings nest in bluebird holes. But they also eat untold billions of pounds of insects.

Amazing, thanks for catching both the photo and the vid to share with us.

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Originally Posted by Twisterdog

I raised a baby grackle that I found once. He was a pretty cool bird, and very smart. I released him back into the wild.

I have also raised several baby starlings. One of them would not leave, and ended up living in the house for years. He said probably a couple hundred words. Unlike parrots, that have to be taught by repitition, birds of the corvid family (mynah birds, crows, starlings, etc.) simply learn on their own. I never tried to teach him anything, he just heard something he liked and started saying it. In fact, he refused to learn things I tried to teach him. I wanted him to say "Nevermore." No way. However, he learned to say, "This is National Public Radio, Talk of the Nation" all on his own, from hearing it on the radio a few times. He could also sing the first few lines of Bruce Springsteen's "Nebraska" after hearing it a couple of times. That really freaked people out! They also speak in a perfect imitation of the voice they hear. My starling could scold the dogs or call my son, and he sounded so identical to me, that they dogs slunk away abashed and my son would always come downstairs saying, "What, Mom?"

True, they are not native species, and therefore not protected. They are hard on some native birds ... starlings nest in bluebird holes. But they also eat untold billions of pounds of insects.

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That is a neat story. I think it is so cool when birds talk. A friend of mine had a bird that would sing "I left my heart in San Francisco".