I noticed this Common Grackle during my recent trip to the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. We were there primarily to photograph large birds like Whooping Cranes, Great Egrets and Great Blue Herons. The captain of our charter boat took us to a rookery where we were able to photograph many large birds, including the Fighting Egrets that I wrote about last week. The Grackle was at the rookery, sitting and waiting for nests to be vacated. As soon as a nest vacated he swooped in to steal the eggs.
Grackles tend to be very annoying birds. Austin is full of Grackles and they make a huge mess in the downtown area. Those of us that have lived here for a while know to stay away from them. If eating outdoors, they will try to steal your food right off the plate. They are totally unafraid of humans and will relentlessly stalk you as long as you have anything on your plate! While most other birds sing happily, the Grackles emit a horrible noise. It is a loud and piercing sound. I’m certain that Grackles have some redeeming qualities but I’ve yet to find one that outweighs their negative traits…
This image was taken with my Canon EOS 5DS using my Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 II Lens set on 400 mm. The camera was set on Aperture priority mode with the aperture set at f/5.6, shutter speed at 1/800th of a second and the ISO set at 100. I learned after I took all of these photographs that these are the wrong settings. It should have been f/8, 1/2000th of a second and the ISO set at Auto (Max 1600). This was a single image processed in Lightroom.
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© 2016 T. Kahler Photography