Fish Crow & Boat-tailed Grackles

markvance (65)in #photofeed • 8 years ago (edited)

Watch this video I got of some Boat-tailed Grackles and Fish Crows. You can tell them apart as the Fish Crow is larger and the Grackles have the big fanned out tail, hence boat-tailed. I got this video at Ackerman Park in Sarasota, Florida. The Fish Crow is mostly in the south eastern part of the United States and is a very smart bird. The fish crow will eat most anything it can get. The Boat-tailed Grackle can be found mainly on the coasts of the Atlantic states and the Gulf of Mexico. They will eat most anything also, and will actually steal food from other birds.

I don't normally take pictures of Boat-tailed Grackles, but here is one I got at The Celery Fields that I liked. You can see it has a nice black sheen or iridescence. I think that sets it apart from the Fish Crow. You can see it's boat tail. This might be a first year bird as it's eye seems to be brown. When they are older that one year the eye is gray or some shad of yellow. It's a little hard to tell in this picture.

CAMERA Canon EOS 50D
ISO 200
FOCAL LENGTH 400mm (640mm in 35mm)
APERTURE f/5.6
Don't confuse these birds with the Red-winged Blackbird. As you can see the Red-winged Blackbird has red and yellow on it's shoulders. I like these birds and they are fairly common in this area.

In this picture you can tell the difference from the Boat-tailed Grackle with the Common Grackle as the Common has the yellow eye. That is a dead giveaway that it is not a Boat-tailed Grackle.

Here is another picture of a Boat-tailed Grackles where you can see the tail.

I like going out in nature and feeling the sun on my face. It makes me feel good. It is even better when I can see some great birds and get some pictures of them. I am lucky to live in Florida where we have many fantastic birds, year round. We get a lot of the birds that migrate from the north in the winter. I hope you like looks at them.

I am an award winning photographer and filmmaker. Many of my pictures have been used in TV Shows and Feature Films, such as "Zero Dark Thirty", "NCIS Los Angeles" and "The Walking Dead".
Many of my bird pictures and videos have been used by The National Audubon Society and Sarasota Audubon and used on several TV shows, like "Animal Outtakes"A on ABC. Enjoy!

#nature #animals #birds