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« Honoring Veterans Today | Home | Fall in the Texas Hill Country »

THE BIRDS in Texas

By Mark D. Roberts | Thursday, November 12, 2009

No, not the Alfred Hitchcock movie. Rather, an invasion of Grackles in Kerrville, Texas.

One time I left my car in the San Antonio airport, cleverly parked under a tree for shade. Or so I thought. I turns out that was a favorite tree for Grackles. When I got back from my trip, I literally could not see out my windshield.

Beware of the Grackles!

P.S. Evan commented below about the noisiness of the Grackles. Yes, indeed. They are obnoxiously loud. You can hear them on this video clip:

You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

Topics: Texas |

8 Responses to “THE BIRDS in Texas”

  1. Thomas Buck Says:
    November 12th, 2009 at 4:16 am

    Wear your hat!

    Tom

  2. Evan Says:
    November 12th, 2009 at 7:26 am

    What is missing from the photos is the utter cacophony of that large a gathering of these very noisy birds.

    Mark, you need to cultivate the friendship of some hawks. To them, that picture looks like a cafeteria buffet line. If the hawks are big enough, they will also fix your problem with squirrels raiding your bird feeder!

  3. Mel Krewall Says:
    November 12th, 2009 at 7:26 am

    We have them in Fort Worth, too. Hate ‘em.

  4. Evan Says:
    November 12th, 2009 at 7:29 am

    I keep forgeting that a G in brackets is ignored by your commentary software, and that a :) should be used to denote levity. So let me note for the record the jocular nature of my above comments, since my signals did not arrive in the text to do so. :)

  5. Mark D. Roberts Says:
    November 12th, 2009 at 8:56 am

    Evan: Great point about the noise. For the uninitiated, you can here the Grackles at this YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqsPfGEIib4

  6. Ann Jack Says:
    November 12th, 2009 at 1:41 pm

    I know too well about grackles, the most obnoxious creatures on earth. City park crews across Texas brainstorm how to get rid of them.

  7. Donna McDonnel Says:
    November 16th, 2009 at 8:19 am

    When I worked at and my husband was a student at the University of Texas at Austin, the school came up with the plan to sound-blast the grackles as a way of getting them to leave the campus, because they were very noisy, but also covered every surface with their ‘plaster’. Every evening at 5:00 pm for a period of weeks, I think at different points around campus, there was some guy with some sort of cannon/sound thing. He’d shout, “Hold your ears!” and then blast the thing. We all got a kick out of the seeming silliness of the thing, but the grackles did move on. I heard they took up residence at the governor’s mansion after that!

  8. Mark D. Roberts Says:
    November 16th, 2009 at 8:21 am

    Donna: Yes, they’ve done a similar thing at the San Antonio airport sometimes.

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