Grackles from outer space

So, back where I come from, there are common grackles.

They're sort of noisy, and they flock in the spring and fall.

I used to live in a house with a huge pine tree in the back yard where they nested.

We'd have dozens of them in our yard on a given day. It was no big deal. I sort of liked having them around, and listening to their interesting language.

Here, however, where the wind comes sweeping down the plain, they have "great tailed grackles."

These things are the spawn of some alien race, I swear to god.

They flock year round, apparently, mostly in parking lots. I, for one, am very grateful that they don't swarm in our apartment complex parking lots.

I mean flock.

They look just like the grackles back home, but are approximately twice the size.

During my first visit here, I had visions of Tippi Hedren's eyes being plucked out in an Hitchcockian moment of horror.

There were so many of them on the wires, atop the signs, and stalking around on the ground in the grocery store parking lot, that it really was quite surreal.

And it was DARK outside. These birds do not go to roost at night. They appear to be up and about for 24 hours a day.

They don't. Ever. Sleep.

"Oh my dear God," I thought, "there are a million of them, and the parking lot at this store is completely encased in poo."

But then, one of them made a sound.

I turned to my then-boyfriend, and said "What the f%#k was that? It sounded like a car alarm, but it was coming from up in that tree over there."

"Oh, that? That's just a grackle."

"Just" a grackle?

These big, black birds make the weirdest assortment of incredibly loud noises I have ever heard. They whistle, and buzz, and literally sound like car alarms part of the time.

Their calls are so loud, that they are easily audible INSIDE of a car, at top speed, with the windows up.

So, now that I live here, I have come to realize that these birds are out to get me.

Everywhere I go, there are great tailed grackles, making strange, LOUD, mechanical sounds.

It's actually become a source of great amusement. My now husband finds it infinitely funny when I find myself in situations in which the grackles loom.

If, at any time, I seem to have disappeared, please alert the authorities....it was probably the grackles what done it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jxaw97UJDo

for a small sampling on You Tube....

In this sample, you can SORT of hear the car alarm sound, and some of the whistles. Just turn up the volume to 11 for the full effect!