The Great-tailed Grackle in Yakima County was first found by my wife
Susan and I on May 25, 1987. The bird was quite tame and would come to
within five feet of us begging for french fries. It would carry the fries
to a puddle of water and swish them in the water, apparently to rinse the
salt of off them. We figured it must have been present there for quite
awhile unless it was familiar with fast food joints before it arrived.
The thing that impresses me most is the way information about a bird's
presence is now readily available to everyone almost instantly. Back in
those "old days" a rare bird alert consisted of a recorded phone message
that was updated weekly or word of mouth on a telephone tree. We chased
many bird sightings that were a week or more old and had not been
updated, this medium is the greatest boon to birding since binoculars.
I still stop at Miner's In and Out every time I go through Union Gap on
the way to Wenas, you have to experience a "Double Big Miners Burger".
But unless you either can devour a bushel of fries or want to feed the
birds only order the medium sized fries.

Wilson Cady
gorgebirds at juno.com

On Thu, 11 Jan 2001 17:31:23 -0800 osprey at nwinfo.net writes:
> 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