Well, when I downloaded images today from the camera, I was anxious to see if there was anything more on the one legged common grackle and sure enough the bird showed up in a few photos. What was interersting this time was in the first few photos you can see an immature grackle waiting behind it? A nestling of the one legged grackle?

A few photos later answered my question. In the background of the photo on the left, the one legged grackle is in front of a begging immature grackle, it does have chicks! Today I mixed in some mixed nuts and mealworms and for the grackles, the nuts are definetly preferred over the mealworms. The bird appears to have two chicks and it's kind of inspiring to watch it in the photos continue on with its duty of raising the off spring and carrying on its DNA. I suppose

that is one of the things that makes this species so successful. Of course many people this time of year are having lots of trouble with grackles taking over feeding stations so it does seem kind of silly to get so taken with one, but I just can't help but show interest in an underdog. Grackles really are a cool looking bird, I wonder if they didn't crowd out other birds sometimes when they feed if people would like them more?

On another note I did notice that we have a banded bird hanging out. I thought I saw a banded bird in one of the photos a few days ago, but figured is was a stray seed in a blurry photo, but today you can clearly see the red-winged blackbird male has a silver band on its right leg. Last year we had a couple of banders behind the store out who banded some birds, I wonder if this was one of them. Which reminds me that I need to book those guys again, they are great educators and it's always fun to hang out with banders.