Mahon About Town Nantucket Blog

The Underbirds

Kenneth Turner Blackshaw

Imagine your ears being assaulted by the sound of a large chain dropping on concrete, then being scraped along the cement. I heard this sound recently coming from the top of a nearby fir tree. It reminded me of Scrooge hearing the ghost of old Marley, dragging his chains of life. Yes, our Common Grackles have returned from the south.

The word ‘grackle’ comes from the Latin, graculus, referring to a Jackdaw, a European crow-like bird. I’ve had friends refer to grackles as ‘crackles,’ perhaps in connection with the fry-pan spitting ‘chuck’ call they make when flying overhead.

Grackles fall in the blackbird family, along with Red-wings, orioles, and meadowlarks. Users of Roger Tory Peterson’s field guide learn to separate grackles from starlings and Red-wings by their long tails. Unfortunately, this causes another identification problem. Many bird books show the Boat-tailed Grackle on the same page with Common Grackles. People are forever deciding our Common Grackles are “boat-tailed.” And they are, they are just not Boat-tailed Grackles.

Oh dear, this is getting quite muddled! Common Grackles are described as being ‘keel-tailed’. That is, their central tail feathers are held lower than the rest. The tail wedges up on both sides. So, even ‘Common’ Grackles have tails like the bottom of a dory. (We never promised you this would be an easy business.)

When I first learned about grackles in the early 50s, there were two species to worry over - Purple and Bronzed. Grackles are mainly black, with piercing yellow eyes. But when the sun hits their bodies, the colors iridesce - one moment black, then green, then purple, then bronze. So we used to stare at our grackles, trying to decide if the purple color went down on the back, or if there was enough bronze. Eventually both species were checked off, but we never felt good about it. Now, Purple and Bronzed have been ‘lumped’ into the Common Grackle.

Grackles are relatively large birds, long and skinny. From tail to beak, they average 12 and one half inches. They are so large that some people call them ‘Crow Blackbirds.’ The females are a little smaller but look the same, glossy black all over, with yellow eyes. Their flight pattern is rather direct, arrowing along without a lot of ups and downs.

So, why are they “underbirds?” I know people who enjoy grackles, because they’re the absolute underbird. Their yellow eyes give them an angry look that only their mother could love, and their voice is as pleasing to the ear as chalk scraped on a blackboard.

We expect our grackles to be with us starting in early March. Once they arrive, the males immediately start posturing, one against the other, pointing their bills up in the air. It seems like whomever is taller is superior. Every now and then, they erect all their feathers, swelling up like balloons, and emit the rasping, clanking sound I mentioned earlier. The best thing that can be said about the grackle’s song is that it doesn’t last very long. Earlier described as like a heavy chain being dropped and dragged, it has been written as ‘kuwaaxza’. It’s definitely a hair-raising sound. This is all part of the mating process and somehow determines who is going to do what, to whom!

(Click here for the call of the Common Grackle.)

Right now, grackles are clustering on the wires on Lower Orange Street, near the Rotary. They are early nesters and are very social, nesting in the evergreens near there. They used to like the bamboo grove near the corner of West Sankaty and New Streets in ‘Sconset. The stand was cut several years ago. Since they left no forwarding address we can only guess where they’ve moved.

Grackles usually limit themselves to one brood a year, with up to six eggs in a clutch, generally finishing their reproductive chores by mid-June. Although they are hard on the ear, they disperse fairly early in the summer. They typically leave Nantucket in late November, although some struggle on through the whole winter. They are uncommon north of D.C. in the wintertime.

In autumn, watch for them to form huge flocks, mixing with Red-wings, Starlings, and Cowbirds. Their flights sometimes darken the sky and often people proclaim them as pests because of the problems associated with so much bird guano. These flights are a dramatic avian phenomenon and signal the beginning of the cold season when they leave us in early November.

George C. West creates illustrations for these articles.

Old Mr. Red-tail
By Kenneth Turner Blackshaw

Perhaps when you were a child you were fortunate enough to have a mother who read to you about the wonderful world of nature depicted by Thornton Burgess. Such characters as Farmer Brown’s Boy, Bowser the Hound, Little Joe Otter, Sammy Jay, and yes - Old Mr. Red-tail, gave me a fanciful appreciation for wild life around me. Mr. Red-tail’s views from high above the green forest and meadow were etched into my thoughts. The tales of Blacky the Crow and his compatriots raising the alarm when Mr. Red-tail was hunting are brought to mind even now, when we see Nantucket’s crows do the same thing.

Red-tailed Hawks are among the most visible of our birds of prey. Most folks recognize them circling high in the sky, scarcely flapping a wing as they do, flashing a bit of rusty red as they steer the air with their tails. They frequently perch atop our phone poles and chimneys and that’s where problems begin. We get calls about huge birds - they must be eagles - or owls. I once scrambled out to Fulling Mill Road and explained to some enthusiastic observers how that white looking bird perched in the fir tree was not a Snowy Owl. Red-tails appear very white from the front.

On Nantucket, we are gladdened to see Red-tails in our skies all year long. Prior to 1944, no one had ever found a nest here, so Edith Folger Andrews was breaking new ground when she wrote about the first nests in her 1948 book. Christmas Bird Count numbers show our winter population trending upward from a low of two in 1965, to 55 in 2003.

Red-tails can be found all over the North America, although they show different color phases in different locations. A Krider’s Red-tail, found in the prairies, is very pale. A Harlan’s Red-tail, also western, is almost all black, with a white tail rather than red. The species name, Buteo jamaicensis, refers to the fact that it was originally discovered down on the island of Jamaica. For years, these hawks up here were called Buteo borealis, but were discovered to be the same as jamaicensis in the early 1900s.
The Buteo in the scientific name refers to the major family of hawks where Red-tails reside. Buteos have broad, rounded wings and relatively short rounded tails, and typically soar in the sky as they hunt. They have incredible vision. We see them soar up to where they are just a dot in the sky, then fold their wings and drop like stones on an unsuspecting mouse, close to a thousand feet below.

Red-tails have a wingspan of just about four feet, with females larger and heavier than the males. They are mainly brown on the back and white in front with a light band across the belly. Adult Red-tails show a nice rusty-red tail in flight, particularly when viewed from above. These large hawks mate for life, a span that may exceed 15 years. There are reports of Red-tails maintaining a solitary existence after their mate was shot, returning to the nest site each year, working on the nest, and hunting on territory.

This species gotten attention several years ago in New York City because a pair set up territory and built a nest on an apartment building overlooking Central Park. They became the subject of a book called ‘Red-tails in Love’ and a subsequent movie which you can rent - ‘Pale Male.’ The flight footage in the video is extraordinary and the scenes showing the young hawks attempting their first flights are very entertaining. They did a huge amount of flying without ever leaving the nest!

Right now a pair of Red-tails is working on a nest somewhere near the Nantucket Platform Tennis Association courts off of the Polpis Road. I’ve been observing this pair for three or four years now. Sometimes we stop playing as one makes a low pass over the courts and gives its blood-curdling scream - “keeeeeear.” It is such a call of the wild that it was chosen to be a standard part of the titles for the TV series “Northern Exposure.”

On Nantucket, most soaring birds we see, besides gulls, are Red-tails. Now is the time when courtship begins for Nantucket’s Red-tails, so they are more visible, doing their nuptial flights. Over the next few weeks, watch for pairs soaring high in the sky, doing their aerial mating. As they circle, high above your heads, think about the huge nest below, maybe three feet across, that will soon have several eggs in it. The annual cycle for the Red-tail is just getting under way.

George C. West creates illustrations for these articles. Originally published in the Nantucket Independent, March 5, 2004.

Mahon About Town welcomes guest columnist Ken Blackshaw and this new monthly column on birding. Ken has been studying birds since his Mom connected him with Edith Andrews in the early 1950s. Edith’s encouragement and enthusiasm carried him to a life-long hobby and avocation. Courtesy of the USAF and IBM, Ken has traveled the world and found birds everywhere. As the grandson of Harry Baker Turner, owner and editor of the Inquirer and Mirror over the first half of the 20th century, Ken has printer’s ink in his blood. Now the author of over ten books focusing mainly on natural history subjects, he writes the weekly bird Column for the Nantucket Independent, and has just published Volume Three of his “A Year of Birding Nantucket” series.

Why Birders Make Lousy Bridge Players
by Kenneth Turner Blackshaw

Here we are at the Salt Marsh Senior Center and I’ve foolishly sat where I can see out the window to the harbor. It’s ice as far as I can see out there and bitterly cold. I’m suddenly entranced by a Rosarch-like pattern, changing shape dramatically over the ice. The shape is like a globe, then an oval, then an hourglass, and then quickly splits in two as an object dives through the middle of it. My initial take was that these were Starlings, but I came to realize they were Rock Pigeons, roughly twelve inches from beak to tail.

The interloper has created panic in the flock and the pigeons fly chaotically for a few seconds. I’m sure some collisions occur. By now, the bridge game is completely forgotten and I’m standing by the window. A lone pigeon flies desperately to the left across the water with a brown form in hot pursuit. Since the chaser is almost the same size as the prey, it is most likely to be a Sharp-shinned Hawk - a male. Did the hawk get a late lunch? We’ll have to guess because they disappeared behind the Town Pier.

Sharp-shinned Hawks are among the least familiar of hawks. Many people know the Red-tails we see soaring over the moors, or the Northern Harriers flying low and precariously over the brush. Falcons get a lot of publicity. But what is a Sharp-shin?

Actually this is one of a species group known as Accipiters. Falconers know them as ‘true’ hawks, and indeed the Genus Accipiter comes from the Latin meaning ‘hawk.’ Two other members are the Cooper’s Hawk, and the Goshawk, both larger, and rarer than this one.

Accipiters differ from other hawks by having relatively short, rounded wings and long tails. Their flight is often very direct, with a flap-flap-sail pattern. Beginning birders learn “flap-flap-sail, and a long square tail” as a key to identifying a Sharp-shin. The larger Cooper’s Hawk has a more rounded tail.

‘Sharpies’ as we call them, and Cooper’s, specialize in preying on other birds. Bent’s Life History of this species reports an interesting 1893 study “Of 159 stomachs examined, 6 contained poultry or game birds; 99, other birds; 6, mice; 5, insects; and 52 were empty.” So, if you see a Sharp-shin, chances are it’s either just eaten another bird or is desperately seeking one that is not paying attention. Many people express horror that one bird would eat another, but then, WE eat other mammals.

Unfortunately, most accipiter sightings are more of the nature, “There goes a . . . oooops, it went into the trees.” If you are lucky, you will spot one on a calm, clear Nantucket day when there are nice thermals. Then you can see them circling above you and get familiar with their flight pattern.

Another method is the squeaking sound I make in order to bring songbirds in for identification, mimicking the sound of an animal in dire distress. This sometimes attracts a Sharp-shin, and remember, one third have empty stomachs. Too often I look up and see orange eyes and yellow talons growing rapidly larger as the hawk dives right at me. Now is a good time to stop squeaking! I have never been hit, but several times I’ve had the hawk land almost at arm’s length, staring with frightening intensity to see just what happened to dinner.

Most Sharp-shins we see are brown striped, first year birds, but an adult is spectacular. The top of the head and back are a lovely slate blue, and from the throat down they are barred horizontally with rusty orange. The sexes are similarly colored but the female is much larger. The part of the bird’s leg we see as the ’shin’ is actually below the bird’s ankle. If you examine a museum specimen, you can see that it has a sharp ridge down it, but that’s not much good as the bird flies past you.

On Nantucket, Sharpies used to be found only rarely in the autumn. Global warming, and/or bird feeding has now brought them to us throughout the winter. They have been reported on every Christmas Bird Count in since 1973, with a high of 15 in 1993.

Watch for these little hawks from September until the end of April. They are more common in October when so many migrate past. If you feed the birds, you may notice that suddenly there are none there. If you look closely, you may see a few ‘frozen’ in position. This is your clue that one of these accipiters has appeared. It’s a jungle out there. Enjoy Nantucket’s ‘wild kingdom.’

This column was originally published in the Nantucket Independent on February 18, 2004. Illustrations by George C. West.