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  Profile

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  In flight

Songbirds

Boat-tailed Grackle

Quiscalus major

• rare
• 55 km/h
• Least Concern

Gulf Coast specialist with a tail you could row. Males look bronze, females look like a different species entirely.

Population

~2.2 million mature individuals, stable (some Partners in Flight data show a slight negative trend over 13 years, but IUCN/BirdLife lists trend as stable)

Habitat

Coastal saltwater and brackish marshes, mangroves, and inland wetlands; also urban/suburban areas near the coast including parks, boat launches, parking lots, and trash bins in Gulf Coast towns

Fun fact

Boat-tailed Grackles breed under a "harem defense" mating system where one dominant male guards a colony of females, yet DNA studies show he actually sires only about a quarter of the resulting offspring.

Range

Non-migratory, year-round resident of the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts of the southeastern and mid-Atlantic United States, from New York/New Jersey south through Florida and west to Texas; vagrants recorded in Canada and Mexico

Diet

Omnivorous opportunist: insects, crustaceans, minnows, frogs, eggs, small birds, berries, seeds, grain, and human food scraps

Size

0.4 m

Wingspan

0.45 m

Lifespan

13 years