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Great-tailed Grackle

The

Great-tailed Grackle

or Mexican grackle (

Quiscalus mexicanus

) is a medium-sized, highly social passerine bird native to North and South America. A member of the family Icteridae, it is one of 10 extant species of grackle and is closely related to the boat-tailed grackle and the extinct slender-billed grackle. In the southern United States, it is sometimes simply referred to as "blackbird" or (erroneously) "crow” due to its glossy black plumage, and similarly it is often called cuervo ("crow") in some parts of Mexico, although it is not a member of the crow genus

Corvus

, nor even of the family Corvidae.
Females are brown and drab, lacking the male's iridescence
Great-tailed grackles are medium-sized birds (larger than starlings and smaller than crows; Males are iridescent black with a

purple-blue sheen

on the feathers of the head and upper body, while females are brown with darker wings and tail and lack the male's iridescence. Adults of both sexes have

bright yellow eyes

, while juveniles of both sexes have brown eyes and brown plumage like females. Great-tailed grackles, particularly the adult males, have a keel-shaped tail that they can fold vertically by aligning the two halves.

The great-tailed grackle and boat-tailed grackle were considered the same species until genetic analyses distinguished them as two separate species.

Great-tailed grackles have an unusually large repertoire of vocalizations that are used year-round. The sounds range from "sweet, tinkling notes" to a "rusty gate hinge". Males use a wider variety of vocalization types, while females engage mostly in "chatter", however there is a report of a female performing the "territorial song". Because of their loud vocalizations, great-tailed grackles are considered a pest species by some.

Great-tailed grackles originated from the tropical lowlands of Central and South America, but historical evidence from Bernardino de Sahagún shows that the Aztecs, during the time of the emperor Ahuitzotl, introduced the great-tailed grackle from their homeland in the Mexican Gulf Coast to the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan in the highland Valley of Mexico, most likely to use their iridescent feathers for decoration. In more recent times

, great-tailed grackles expanded their breeding range by over 5,500% by moving north into North America between 1880 and 2000

, following urban and agricultural corridors. Their current range stretches from northwestern Venezuela and western Colombia and Ecuador in the south to Minnesota in the north, to Oregon, Idaho, and California in the west, to Florida in the east, with vagrants occurring as far north as southern Canada. Their habitat for foraging is on the ground in clear areas such as pastures, wetlands and mangroves, and chaparral. The grackles' range has expanded with agricultural and urban settings.

Great-tailed Grackle