Hello Michael,

It seems very strange that no one beside Patrick wrote any description on this bird as there reported this bird beside where the bird was sihted and what he was doingThe photos got shot in good lighting and close up and on the ground on the street.Nothing abstracted the view,ans i got 4 photos where this bird was with the Brewers Blackbird,so you could twell that poprtin wise larger than the brewersThe way Marv said the bird looked exactly as the Stokes Fieldguide.The chest was never that light at all and exact the color of the bird in my photos kind the dark brown.Jim Flynn looked at my photos today and i have this bird in many position different angle,and it never showed the light brown chest as in most all the fieldguides,but the colors can vary on this.It seems to me that you guys saw a different bird than we saw.

Ruth Sullivan
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Original Message -----
From: Michael Willison
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Sent: Thursday, October 31, 2002 12:48 AM
Subject: Grackle Mystery


Tweeters,

I am seeing a lot of talk about the concern of how black or dark this bird is for it to be a G. T. Grackle. Of all the pictures I have seen of this bird on the internet I haven't seen one yet that does this bird justice as to the color I believe it more closely has. Maybe I just haven't seen all the pics yet that are out there on the web, but I observed this bird for a half hour at as near as 5 feet from me on the ground in the parking lot. It is not black at all in the head, neck, or breast. It is brown. Much contrasting to the darker blackish back and rest of body including the tail. I also believed this bird to have a much larger/longer tail than the Brewer's in the area and although I will agree to some arguments that it is not as keel shaped as we might expect, it does give the jizz of a molting grackle tail especially in flight. I'd be interesting in seeing what others who have seen this bird think about color! ations as well.

Michael Willison

sendtomichael at hotmail.com




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