BRONZED GRACKLE 409 



In Maine, grackles are frequently seen at the edges of ponds, or on 

 salt water mud flats, where they secure worms, small crustaceans, and 

 other edible articles. Occasionally, they will feed on a large dead 

 fish left by the receding tide, and along fresh water ponds they have 

 been known to pick up dead frogs and snakes, as well as fish that have 

 drifted ashore. At times grackles even visit garbage dumps, with 

 starlings, to pick up miscellaneous waste food. 



I have often seen them feeding among the animals in piggeries, 

 where this sleek, well-groomed bird seemed decidedly out of place; 

 and they frequent the door yards of homes in cities and towns, as well 

 as of farms, where they obtain bits of bread and other food. Hard 

 bread they may first soak in water, if a convenient pool or bird bath is 

 near, until it is soft and easily swallowed. They have been seen to 

 retrieve bits of food floating on the water. William Brewster (1937) 

 gives an account of grackles taking bread and crackers from the water 

 at Lake Umbagog, Maine, as follows: "Today I saw them dip their 

 legs to the thighs in the water and repeatedly one immersed the lower 

 half of its body, also apparently floating on the water for an instant. 

 The food was invariably taken up in the bill however." 



The vegetable food of the grackle is as variable and diversified as the 

 animal food, showing plainly that when one article of diet is not avail- 

 able, this very adaptable bird turns to food more easily obtained. Of 

 the various items of vegetable food, the chief interest centers about 

 grain and fruit, and it is through the consumption of these that black- 

 birds inflict the greatest damage on man. Frequent complaints have 

 been made against the grackle by the farmer because of the large 

 quantities of grain eaten, especially when immense flocks descend on 

 the grain fields. According to F. E. L. Beal (1900), "the stomach 

 contents were found to contain corn, oats, wheat, rye and buckwheat 

 and of these, corn is the favorite, having been found in 1,321 stomachs, 

 or more than 56 percent of the whole number. It is eaten in all seasons 

 of the year; and in every month except January, July, August and 

 November amounts to more than one-half of the total vegetable 

 food. * * * "In August corn amounts to one-seventh of the whole 

 food, and this together with a part taken in September, is green corn 

 'in the milk'." The birds easily strip the green husks from the ears in 

 order to reach the growing corn and what they do not eat is left 

 exposed to the weather to dry or rot. The maximum amount of corn, 

 82 percent, is eaten in February, according to Beal. At this season it 

 is waste grain and of no economic importance. 



Oats, eaten in irregular quantities, in August, forms 26 percent of 

 the total food, this being the only month of the year in which this grain 

 reaches a higher percentage than corn. In the southern States, 



