Late winter Great-tailed Grackle male displaying, Salt Lake County, Utah

Great-tailed Grackle Images, Facts and Information:

Quiscalus mexicanus

  • Great-tailed Grackles are large, noisy blackbirds with long tails and long, sturdy bills. Males have yellow eyes, glossy black plumage with blue to purple iridescence. Females are about half the size of males and are a rich brown.
  • The range of Great-tailed Grackles is very rapidly expanding, historically they were found as far north as southern Texas, I have seen them now as far north as southern Montana.
  • Great-tailed Grackles eat grains, fruits, and in summer they will eat insects, bees, wasps, snails, worms, slugs, moths, small mammals, frogs, lizards, fish, bird eggs and nestlings. They will also eat food dropped in urban areas.
  • Their preferred habitats include fields, marshes, agricultural and urban areas, farmyards, feedlots, forests, chaparral, parks and neighborhood lawns in the southwest, Texas, the Great Plains and now the Great Basin up towards Montana then south into Mexico and Central America.
  • Great-tailed Grackles lay 3 to 4 eggs which take 13 to 14 days to hatch. The female incubates.
  • Great-tailed Grackles can live up to 13 years.

I hope you enjoy viewing my Great-tailed Grackle photos.

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