Spring training for grackles and spring feeding for hawks

Written by Jack Sanders
Thursday, 29 March 2012 14:36

Frank McBrearity has the New Canaan Grackles in spring training in his back yard. Perhaps he’d like to order one of these jerseys — only $26 from Birdorable.com! While it’s baseball-style, we’re certain Frank can coach his team into playing America’s pastime instead of that autumnal game.Spring brings back many familiar faces on the bird front, but for Frank McBrearity of New Canaan, some birds are more noticeable than others — and more athletic.

“The New Canaan Grackles arrived this week for spring tryouts in my backyard,” Frank writes. “A full team of 11, plus several rookie substitutes, were on hand to commence training on my feeders.

“As always the New Canaan Grackles are a very determined, experienced team; quick shifts in the backfield, clever handoffs, and determined blocking at all levels.  And if there is a fumble, they descend quickly to bring the kernel under control.

“It is on defense, however, that the Grackles are a powerful force.  No team gets through the Grackles’ defensive line: not the big Blue Jays, or crafty Cardinals, or pesky Woodpeckers, or clever Chickadees.  

“Only the well-disguised play of the Red-winged Blackbirds breaks through the Grackles’ defense for a score.  The well-populated Finch team is relegated to the tree lines.  

“The New Canaan Grackles dominate the feeder playing field this season, as it has for many a spring season over the past few years.  I am beginning to hear a chorus at the roof top now — ‘Break up the Grackles, Break up the Grackles.’ “

Hungry hawks

Hawks have been doing well lately, too, but feeding on their fellow birds.

“This hawk was right by the house feasting on what looks like the remains of a duck,” reported Steffi Jones in a recent email. “There’s a big pile of feathers.” A subsequent investigation found that the feathers belonged to a female Mallard.

However, Maggie Caldwell, editor of The Greenwich Post, notes some dinners have become even media events. 

While walking through Thompson Square Park in New York City a couple of weekends ago, she said,  “I heard a loud hawk screech, then saw a group of New Yorkers gathered under a tree. This massive hawk — maybe red-tailed, maybe something else, I’d never seen one so big — was on a low tree branch, ripping the feathers out of a pigeon it had just caught. 

“It was only about 12 feet up in the air and there were about 50 people gathered around taking photos and videos, live blogging, tweeting the event.” 

A different kind of tweeting also took place. “In another tree nearby was the gray female watching — tweeting, not shrieking.  But every so often this big male hawk would just screech so loud. My boyfriend thought it was scared by all the people, but I just thought it was kind of showing off.”

Maggie says she sees a lot of hawks in the City. “We saw a couple last weekend in Central Park. 

“I couldn’t believe how brazen it was, though. I’ve never seen a hawk just sit so close to so many people.”

Maggie adds: “You always see strange things in New York City and people often ignore the strangest, but this definitely got a crowd.”

State bird issues

Chris Powell is an editor and columnist for the Journal Inquirer, a daily newspaper in Manchester, Conn. He usually deals strictly with heavy-duty political controversies, but an avian issue fired him up recently.

“Connecticut should replace its state bird, the robin, according to Robert Miller, a reporter for the Danbury News-Times, because it’s so common, moonlights as the state bird of Michigan and Wisconsin as well, and is not the harbinger of spring it used to be, since some robins now stay through the winter in the state,” Chris writes.

“But ‘common’ is just another way of saying ‘homey,’ which is very much what Connecticut is — a comfortable and convenient place, within sight of a couple of great cities but also at a safe distance from them. Robins also set the right example as good family birds, with both parents feeding and protecting their young, and give excellent service to their human neighbors, being among the first birds to sing at dawn and the last to stop singing at night.

“And if some robins are staying through the winter in Connecticut, that’s only more reason for the state to reciprocate the loyalty. After all, a big part of the state’s human population lately has joined the migratory robins in flying south for the winter, and many people find not only the weather but also the political, economic, and tax climate so superior down there that they don’t come back at all even as the robins do.

“State government could learn something from all this: not that it should fire the robin, but that if it wants people to stay here or even move here, it will have to leave them more than worms.”

Coming up

Bird Watching 101,  “a good foundation for enthusiasts,” Saturday, March 31, 1 to 3:30 p.m.,  $15/adult, kids free, Audubon Greenwich, 613 Riversville Road, RSVP  to Ted at 203-869-5272 x230.

Seals and Seabirds cruises, two and a half hours around Norwalk Islands, Saturday, March 31 at noon and Sunday, April 1, at 1 p.m., $20.50, Maritime Aquarium, Norwalk, 203-852-0700, ext. 2206, maritimeaquarium.org 

with Bedford Audubon Naturalist Tait Johansson, Thursday, April 12, 7:15 to 8:30 p.m., meet at the parking area just before the toll booth inside the Reservation, located off Route 121 in Cross River. Register at 914-519-7801 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ; www.bedfordaudubon.org

Copyright 2012 by Jack Sanders. Send sightings or comments to: jackfsanders [at sign] gmail.com, or to Bird Notes, Box 1019, Ridgefield, CT 06877. If you need help identifying a bird, try your local nature center. If you find an injured bird, call wildlife rehabilitator Darlene Wimbrow of Redding, 203-438-0618, Wildlife in Crisis of Weston, 203-544-9913, or Wild Wings of Greenwich, 203-637-9822. The columnist’s website is www. sandersbooks. com.