Great-tailed grackles are highly adaptable and opportunistic foragers. Their diet includes insects, seeds, grains, small invertebrates, and human food waste, which allows them to take advantage of a wide range of habitats and changing conditions. This might also be why they can be known as dumpster divers in more populated areas.
When breeding, these birds eat a mixture of seeds and invertebrates, and parents provision their young with the latter almost exclusively. During migration and while on wintering grounds, bobolinks subsist on a variety of seeds from wild and commercially-grown plants.
Written by Peter Pearsall/Photo by Peter Pearsall Bold, brash, and unmistakable, the yellow-headed blackbird (Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus) is one of North America’s most striking marsh birds. With its golden head and jet-black body, the male looks almost
Written by Peter Pearsall/Photo illustration by Peter Pearsall, using photographs by Dan Streiffert The New World blackbird family, Icteridae, comprises familiar temperate species such as orioles, meadowlarks, grackles, and cowbirds,
Written by Peter Pearsall/Photos by Dan Streiffert The ferruginous hawk (Buteo regalis) is the largest North American member of the genus Buteo, a cosmopolitan group of broad-winged raptors known as “buzzards”
