Hi Ian and Tweeters,

If it looks like a Common Grackle, sounds like a Common Grackle and acts
like a Common Grackle, it must be a Common Grackle. At least the one on
Birchfield Road east of Yakima was.

It did associate with and display for Brewer's Blackbirds. That is possibly
best explained by quoting a line from a song from the sixties: "If you
can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with."

Denny Granstrand
Yakima, WA

At 04:59 PM 7/6/2002 -0700, you wrote:
>HI ALL:
> Awhile back I joked about the Yakima Grackle breeding with Brewer's to
>produce a "Brewgrack". I was reading through the latest issue of Western
>Birds and inthe 1999 California Bird Record Committee report, on page 28
>they mention this:
> " What was thought initially to be perhaps CA 1st purple grackle (Q.q.
>stonei/ quiscula) summered at Preisker Park in Santa Maria, SBA, 8 may- 5
>jul 1999. It assisted a pair of Brewer's blackbirds in raising their
>young, bringing food to the nest in late may (often being chased by the
>blackbirds when doing so) and feeding fledglings in late June. Although
>this bird's size and shape resembled those of a common grackle, the bird's
>courtship displays (given only to brewer's blackbirds) and tail cocking
>recalled the great-tailed grackle, whereas the vocalizations were similar
>to those of a brewer's blackbird. Additionally, several plumage features
>on this bird were not typical of any race of common grackle. in
>particular, it did not have the typical strogly contrasting hood of a
>common grackle, usually bluish in versicolor and stonei and purple in
>quiscula. The uniform purple back of the Santa Maria bird was inconsistent
>with that of a common grackle, which should be bronze (versicolor), green
>(quiscula), or purple with variegated and barred patterning (stonei). The
>uniformly purple wing coverts were also atypical of purple grackles, which
>generally have blue coverts. a hybrid brewer's blackbird x great-tailed
>grackle could explain the behavioral and plumage features of this bird,
>and most committee members felt that this was indeed the individual's
>identity." Has anyone considered blackbird x grackle hybrids regarding the
>recent common grackle records from WA?
>
>Ian Paulsen
>Bainbridge Island, WA, USA
>ipaulsen at krl.org
>A.K.A.: "Birdbooker"
>"Rallidae all the way"
>
* * * * * * * * * * *
* Denny Granstrand *
* Yakima, WA *
* osprey at nwinfo.net *
* * * * * * * * * * *