{"id":108155,"date":"2022-11-20T05:26:41","date_gmt":"2022-11-20T12:26:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/?p=108155"},"modified":"2023-02-20T14:25:06","modified_gmt":"2023-02-20T21:25:06","slug":"great-tailed-grackle-and-a-weathervane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2022\/11\/20\/great-tailed-grackle-and-a-weathervane\/","title":{"rendered":"Great-tailed Grackle And A Weathervane"},"content":{"rendered":"

On a recent walk around my local pond, I heard the call of a male Great-tailed Grackle. When I found it, I giggled out loud because of where it was perched. Apparently it doesn’t take much to make me laugh.<\/p>\n

\"MaleMale Great-tailed Grackle and weathervane \u2013 Nikon D500, f7.1, 1\/800, ISO 500, Nikkor 70-300mm VR at 300mm, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

The grackle tickled my sense of humor because both it and the bass weathervane had their mouths open with a bright blue sky behind them. Was it life imitating art?<\/p>\n

I know that some people find the calls and songs<\/span><\/a> of Great-tailed Grackles irritating but I actually like hearing these birds. I also enjoy seeing and photographing them.<\/p>\n

When I walked up to the pavilion because I only had my Nikkor 70-300mm lens attached to my camera. My 500mm lens was at home. I’m actually glad I had the shorter focal length because with my bird gear I wouldn’t have been able to fit the bird and the weathervane into my viewfinder.<\/p>\n

Where these grackles are roosting at night this fall is a mystery to me. Not that long ago I used to hear them settling in for the night just across the street in a conifer in a neighbor’s yard.<\/p>\n

In the spring I will be able to look forward to watching the males of this species displaying and I am excited about that. I had great fun photographing the grackles last spring while their breeding season was going on. The grackles nest not far from the pond and their activity, calls, and displays fascinate me. They start nesting before the trees fully leaf out which means I can see how the females create their nests.<\/p>\n

When I first moved to Utah sightings of this species were not all that common. Now I can find them in many areas including close to home.<\/p>\n

Life is<\/em> good.<\/p>\n

Mia<\/p>\n

Click here<\/span><\/a> to see more of my Great-tailed Grackle photos plus facts and information about this species.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On a recent walk around my local pond, I heard the call of a male Great-tailed Grackle. When I found it, I giggled out loud because of where it was perched.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":108152,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,426,709,26],"tags":[970,12838,4072,4620,4779,4780,2429,4062,4778,13468,4179,4018,8018,12839],"class_list":["post-108155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-avian","category-great-tailed-grackles","category-salt-lake-county-utah","category-utah","tag-autumn","tag-bass","tag-calling","tag-fall","tag-grackle","tag-grackles","tag-great-tailed-grackle","tag-male","tag-quiscalus-mexicanus","tag-roof","tag-singing-2","tag-sky","tag-urban","tag-weathervane"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/great-tailed-grackle-male-weathervane-mia-mcpherson-3615.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p11Mom-s8r","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":117332,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2023\/10\/23\/male-great-tailed-grackle-on-a-weathervane\/","url_meta":{"origin":108155,"position":0},"title":"Male Great-tailed Grackle On A Weathervane","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"October 23, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Today, I'm sharing a photo of a male Great-tailed Grackle perched on a weathervane. I took this photo while walking down at one of my local ponds last week.","rel":"","context":"In "Birds"","block_context":{"text":"Birds","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/avian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Great-tailed Grackle male perched on a weathervane, Salt Lake County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/great-tailed-grackle-weathervane-mia-mcpherson-4417.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/great-tailed-grackle-weathervane-mia-mcpherson-4417.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/great-tailed-grackle-weathervane-mia-mcpherson-4417.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, 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McPherson","date":"March 16, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"I had a fun time at my local pond yesterday because it is Great-tailed Grackle breeding season and photographing these grackles kept me on my toes.","rel":"","context":"In "Birds"","block_context":{"text":"Birds","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/avian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Four Great-tailed Grackle males displaying, Salt Lake County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/great-tailed-grackle-adult-male-displaying-2538.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/great-tailed-grackle-adult-male-displaying-2538.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/great-tailed-grackle-adult-male-displaying-2538.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, 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McPherson","date":"March 19, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"While I was walking around my local pond three days ago I enjoyed having a male Great-tailed Grackle in my viewfinder for a bit. He was strolling along nearby.","rel":"","context":"In "Birds"","block_context":{"text":"Birds","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/avian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Male Great-tailed Grackle going for a stroll, Salt Lake County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/great-tailed-grackle-urban-mia-mcpherson-6010.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/great-tailed-grackle-urban-mia-mcpherson-6010.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/great-tailed-grackle-urban-mia-mcpherson-6010.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/great-tailed-grackle-urban-mia-mcpherson-6010.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":101491,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2022\/04\/09\/spring-male-great-tailed-grackle-portraits\/","url_meta":{"origin":108155,"position":5},"title":"Spring Male Great-tailed Grackle Portraits","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"April 9, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday morning I had fun taking spring male Great-tailed Grackle portraits because these males were displaying and not paying attention to me or my camera.","rel":"","context":"In "Birds"","block_context":{"text":"Birds","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/avian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Male Great-tailed Grackle calling portrait, Salt Lake County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/great-tailed-grackle-adult-male-portrait-mia-mcpherson-5934.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/great-tailed-grackle-adult-male-portrait-mia-mcpherson-5934.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/great-tailed-grackle-adult-male-portrait-mia-mcpherson-5934.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/great-tailed-grackle-adult-male-portrait-mia-mcpherson-5934.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}