[CT Birds] B-t Grackle Question

[greg hanisek]

Tim:
   
  I'd love to hear other thoughts on this. Here are some of mine:
       The population seems pretty stable at the moment to me. For several years now the high count in winter up until breeding starts has been in the mid-to-high 20s. I'm not sure what the dynamics are between the wintering birds and the breeding population - i.e is this a self-contained year-round population or do some head farther south in winter and some return in spring? I don't think anyone has figured how many active nests there are or if they've increased recently. Since the species is polygynist, you can't speak in ters of numbers of pairs. So far there doesn't seem to be any strong sign of the breeding colony spreading away from McKinney, but things can change fast. Maybe this year they'll  be found breeding somewhere else. I'm pretty fascinated by the whole thing. The consistent size of the winter flock is kind of amazing.
   
  Greg Hanisek
  Waterbury
  
Tim Antanaitis <timant123 at yahoo.com> wrote:
  >From Tim Antanaitis:
3/22 - Bridgeport, Seaside Park, 6-6:30pm -- male EURASIAN WIGEON along
Sound shoreline
Stratford, Sikorsky Airport entrance, 7-7:15pm -- 26 (21m+5F) BOAT-TAILED
GRACKLES

I didn't rush to get this report in, as these species were sent in yesterday by
another birder. I took a few bad pictures:

http://picasaweb.google.com/TimAntanaitis/EurasianWigeon
http://picasaweb.google.com/TimAntanaitis/26BoatTailedGrackles21m5f

The Eurasian Wigeon was with 47 American Wigeon.

The Boat-tailed Grackles were in the trees next to the tall tower at the entrance
to Sikorsky at sunset. I try to get exact counts every time I see these guys.
On 4/7/07 I saw 23 (14m+9f) on the railroad trail off of Long Beach Blvd. Does
anyone know if the population is growing? Does a bigger group break up into
smaller groups at different night roosting sites? How many females have been
seen together recently?

Tim Antanaitis
East Hampton





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