Laura Erickson's For the Birds

Boat-tailed Grackles are hard to miss anywhere in the coastal Southeast, and throughout the Florida peninsula. They’re huge, and saunter about with ridiculously long tails, whether they’re in a grocery store parking lot, a marsh, or Walt Disney World. The rich, dark-brown females are half the size of males and look almost like a different species. Boat-tailed Grackles take advantage of human activity along our increasingly developed coast, scavenging trash and hanging out in busy urban areas away from predators.

Having problems with blackbirds? Check out some ways to solve the problem.