I first wrote about grackles here:

square-tail loves dj lethal

there is a bird here i call squaretail because his tail is square

as dumb as they are, maybe i should say square head

but anyway this one is cool, he came and sat on the telephone pole yesterday and sang and sang and sang

i went out they usually fly off this one kept on singing and singing

i said HEY you brain dead or what?

just kept singing

THEN i noticed one of the noises matched perfectly the music i was playing, limp bizkit, the bird was all excited

he particularly liked dj lethal, a member of limp bizkit, who makes his sounds by scratching old lp records, djs do that, thats why they are called djs today, they are actual band members with special lps and diamond tips -- crazy

but cool sounds and squaretail, i believe, has fell in luv w/dj lethal

b

It was a letter to a friend. I have since found out squaretail is actually a Boat Tailed Grackle, which is yet more evidence (Like we need it) that mankind loves naming things with ridiculous sounds and minimum sensibility.

Here is what I have found out about grackles, through observation this year, and just general philosophising on their presence:

On the 8th day God made grackles. They are from some other dimension where weeks have eight days, and they fly through the quantum foam via mexico on their yearly migratory route to bring their bad old selves to swnm around early june or so.

Grackles are comic relief. Without their shenanigans the summers would be unbearable. Early, they sing about where they have been all winter. Usually they have been hanging outside some mexican kids bedroom window, and they now know and can duplicate every noise made by said mexican kids video games. Sometimes the grackles will fly low, in grackle formation, no doubt pretending to be the navys crack c130 stunt pilot team, the blue grackles, and they will make the noises of the video games or what have you as they overfly. The observer will note that very rarely do grackles ever defecate in meaness as they fly over, and we have that going for us, and thats a nice thing.

This year one grackle made sounds like music from old western movies, I kid you not, and I wonder where he has been roosting to pick that stuff up. He may have been the one who last year fell in love with dj lethal, by the looks of him I mean. Big meaty fellow, grackles remind me of orioles but I am told they taste like chicken, the residents of Hachita NM make fine sport and fare of grackles early, and only the smartest grackles survive, though why they keep returning is not so smart to me. Grandma Sadies Famous South West NM Grackle Stew is actually fought over by certain truckers around this part of the state, and is loved for more than anything its characteristic of going snap grackle and pop once fully cooked.

Grackles in heat have a special sound, and its even funnier than their regular sounds. So ernest. So frank. Such a pitiful and yearning squawk announces their eligibility within the grackle reproduction realm. I do not know what a grackle egg looks like, but I am told they taste like chicken too. I imagine they are something weird, maybe even satanic, perhaps red with white polka dots, like a poison mushroom...I am being unkind, I bet they are a shade of the grackles own color, a rich feces brown, with a lighter brown, almost diarrhea colored bib below a pointy beaked head like a black golf ball. The square tail is just the icing on the cake for this ridiculous (nay ludicrous) sculpture by God, the grackle.

To see the grackle as it seesaws through the air trying hard and actually flying but not fast, and making funny noises all the way, is something that must be experienced to be believed. Yes, imagine a spastic and broken church organ with wheezy diaphragms and missing keys has shat a turd with wings and a pointed beak and a square tail, the grackle happens. You have heard of Hollywood, and even Dollywood, and of late northern New Mexico has been called Tamale-wood (Too true), but down here in south western new mexico (swnm) is what can only be called Gracklewood.

A well known past resident of Gracklewood was the great grackle writer Jack Grackleac. And then there are the two pretenders, Hekyl and Grackle, not to be confused with the very serious and even frightening case of Dr. Grackle and Mr. Hyde.

Grax in general alert on movement around them, acoss the yard, across the field, across dimensions perhaps. In some ways they are a fright, but a boon too, because summer here in swnm would be even less appealing without our friend and background music, the grackle. Watching every move of every resident and telling each other and every OTHER resident whats up -- why its a busy and exciting place here in Gracklewood SWNM. It is why I do my best to leave grackle feed about, and water of course. I am not chumming the water as it were, I am not baiting the grackles, (I only do that with quail) -- I am doing my part to keep reality as interesting as it has been, and that too is why I say, with resounding force and great meaning: God Save The Grackles!