BOAT-TAILED GRACKLE

(Quiscalus major)

eBird provides this description of the Boat-tailed Grackle:  Large, lanky blackbird with rounded crown and long tail. Males have ridiculously long tails, almost as long as their body, often held in a V-shape like the keel of boat. Males are glossy black. Females are brown, with subtle face pattern. Eye color ranges from brown along western Gulf Coast to yellow on Atlantic Coast. Strictly coastal, except in Florida where they occur inland (often around human development). Overlaps with similar Great-tailed Grackle on Texas coast, but occurs more strictly in coastal saltmarshes and has dark eye (not pale).  All About Birds offers this description:  When you smell saltwater on the East Coast, it’s time to look out for Boat-tailed Grackles. The glossy blue-black males are hard to miss as they haul their ridiculously long tails around or display from marsh grasses or telephone wires. The rich, dark-brown females are half the size of males and look almost like a different species. Boat-tailed Grackles take advantage of human activity along our increasingly developed coast, scavenging trash and hanging out in busy urban areas away from predators. 

I saw what the Merlin app identified as a female Boat-tailed Grackle on the afternoon of June 21, 2020 at Choke Canyon State Park near Three Rivers, Texas.  I had not seen any male Grackles near the shore of the lake where I spotted this bird, so I was surprised that Merlin identified it as female Boat-tailed Grackle.  I was a little dubious, but, further research in The Sibley Guide to Birds convinced me it was a correct identification.  Specifically, the yellow eye and the rich rufous-brown underside (as opposed to pale, without warm tones, on the Great-tailed Grackle).