BRONZED GRACKLE 419 



Many grackles banded in New England during the spring migration 

 travel northeastward to Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and eastern 

 Quebec. 



Samuel E. Perkins III (1932) in compiling the recoveries of bronzed 

 grackles banded at a dozen stations in different parts of Indiana dis- 

 covered those birds wintered in a narrow, restricted area between 

 Louisiana and Alabama. Purple grackles banded by Horace D. 

 McCann (1931) in Pennsylvania likewise have the same habit of 

 keeping to a restricted east-to-west winter range, not more than 100 

 miles across. Many other birds, such as the robin and mourning 

 dove, have shown a distinct tendency to spread out fanlike in their 

 fall migration to the south and to winter in a very wide area. 



Examples of other interesting recoveries of the bronzed grackle are : 

 One banded at Ottawa, Canada, taken in North Carolina; one banded 

 in Saskatchewan, taken in Louisiana; and T. E. Musselmann has 

 written me that a grackle banded at Quincy, 111., in the spring of 1947 

 was taken 3 months later at a point 3,000 miles north in Alberta, 

 Canada. As many such records accumulate in the future, we shall 

 gain a clearer picture of the migratory routes as well as the summer and 

 winter distribution of specific populations. 



The distribution of the bronzed grackle over the various types of 

 crops and farm land in Illinois was determined by a statistical survey 

 conducted in 1906-1907 and reported by Forbes (1907, 1908), and 

 by Forbes and Gross (1923). The sight of large flocks in the grain 

 fields, especially in the autumn, leads us to a natural misconception 

 of their distribution as a whole, but when adequate samples are taken 

 of all types of land and crops under all conditions of weather and all 

 times of day, as was done on this survey, a truer picture is gained of 

 their status in relation to the crops. The survey was conducted 

 continuously throughout an entire year but the results of one trip 

 taken from the Indiana line to Quincy on the Mississippi River, from 

 August 28 to October 17, 1906, will serve to illustrate this point. 

 The accumulated records, revealed that the bronzed grackle was the 

 most abundant of the native birds, representing 1 1 percent of the total 

 population of all the birds of the agricultural areas, an average of 94 

 grackles per square mile. The interesting fact, however, is that their 

 numbers were greatest not on grain fields, but on pasturelands, where 

 90 percent of this species was found at a population density of 307 

 birds per square mile. Only 4 percent of the grackles, at a density of 

 only 10 per square mile, were found in corn; and 4 percent, at a den- 

 sity of 21 birds per square mile, were present in stubble. 



Winter. — The bronzed grackles which occupy the extreme 

 northern parts of the nesting range migrate to the south in the 

 fall. In New England the great mass of birds leave by the end of 



