Great-tailed Grackle

Steve, the birder and photographer I met when we caught the heron, was a wealth of information about the park birds.  He told me about three different hawk nests with babies (one of which I had already found by following a hawk back to its nest - a fact I mention with a fair amount of pride) and gave me directions to a nest in Area III not too far from the train.  On the way over there I stopped to shoot these Great-tailed Grackles.  (Side note: I'm not a big fan of "shoot" to describe picture-taking.  But the more I try to say "taking pictures of" or some variation, the more I'm growing to accept shoot.  Just don't think I'm trying to be cool by using it.)

Males are quite a bit bigger than the females, and starkly different in terms of color.  He's so iridescent it's hard to call that black.  There were a group of several males who hung around, not exactly begging, but expecting food from me.  The females and juvenile birds moved off to a respectful distance.

At one point the most dominant male of the bunch lifted up his head and bent back his neck so he was looking over his own back, then puffed up like this and "sang" to/at me.

When I didn't respond, he just headed right over to me.  Hard not to like such gregarious birds.

It's also hard not to anthropomorphize birds, especially ones that have some level of interaction with humans.  I think this is true both because we want to - we want to see a little of ourselves in birds, and vice-versa - and also because we lack a vocabulary.  The only words at our disposal are either too human or too clinical.  We're stuck with, "Aw, how cute, he's begging!" or "The male demonstrated food-response behavior."  So let me just say these birds wanted food from me, but they didn't beg.  There was no supplication in their behavior. They also didn't skulk or steal.  They just very matter-of-factly wanted food from me. 

Great-tailed Grackle, taken in Area III of El Dorado Park by the pond on the way over by the train ride, May 3, 2010.  Identified on Cornell's website - I knew it was a grackle, but I thought the name was "long-tailed grackle."  Google pointed me to the correct identification.  Taken with the Nikon 55-200 telephoto.  When I first sat down they kept coming too close and I couldn't focus on them.