This grackle trip with the stop at McDonald's is interesting in light of the
history of Great-tailed Grackles in Washington. The Stanwood GTGR is the
second one to be seen in Washington.

The first one was found by Wilson and Susan Cady in Yakima on about May 24,
1987. Wilson and Susan stopped at Miner's Drive-in, one of Yakima's oldest
and most popular hamburger joints, on their way home from the Wenas Campout.
When they got home, Wilson called Andy Stepniewski and reported seeing a
Great-tailed Grackle somewhat like: "I suppose you have seen the
Great-tailed Grackle at Miner's eating french fries along with lots of
Brewer's Blackbirds".
Of course, the birding community in Yakima had not heard of it. There soon
followed a mass-flocking of Yakima Auduboners to Miner's to see the grackle.
It even made the front page of the Yakima newspaper.

We tend to think we have to search in remote areas of the wilderness for our
rare birds. Great-tailed Grackles seem to prefer more urban spots - a
hamburger joint and a seed and feed store.

Denny Granstrand
Yakima, WA



At 04:11 PM 1/11/2001 -0800, you wrote:
>tweeters:
>I talked my 4 year old into driving with me to Stanwood to see the
>Great-tailed Grackle with the promise of a stop at McDonalds.( I hate
>bribery but a birders gotta do what a birders got to do)
> I didn't see it initially at the feed store, so I look a block west at
>the police station and it was there-on top of a telephone pole. I
>watched it for about 10 min. before it flew to the power lines across
>from the feed store. This bird "seemed" smaller than I imagined. The
>"books" all say 18" or the size of a pigeon. Maybe it was the
>distraction next to me in the car, but the bird seemed to my eyes only a
>little bigger than the Red-winged Blackbirds near it on the wire. More
>like the size the "books" describe for the size of a Common Grackle or a
>"scrawny crow" as Michael Hobbs described it..
>Does size really matter? :-) ? Any thoughts on the size of this bird?
>I watched it for another 5 minutes or so till my impatient side-kick
>insisted that we get to McDonalds "right now".
>So we headed out.
>arthur (and Dorian)
>
>
* * * * * * * * * * *
* Denny Granstrand *
* Yakima, WA *
* osprey at nwinfo.net *
* * * * * * * * * * *