Quiscalus quiscula
Order Passeriformes
Family Ictaridae
Subfamily Ageaiinae
Other names: Crow Blackbird
♂ Adult male.— Head, neck, and upper breast iridescent purple, violet, or brassy-green in good light (at a distance the whole bird looks black); rest of body black, with metallic reflections; wings and tail bluish, violet, or purplish; tail long, middle pair of feathers much longer than outer pair; eye pale yellow.
♀ Adult female.— Similar, but browner and smaller.
Nest, bulky, of dried grasses, etc., in trees.
Eggs, greenish, spotted and streaked with black and brown.
The Crow Blackbird is a summer resident throughout New York and New England, but in northern New England occurs only locally in low ground near water. It arrives late in February, or early in March, and stays occasionally as late as October. When the Blackbirds first return, they come in flocks, and they breed in communities, preferring the security of evergreen trees for nesting-places. Here they may be seen on the tops of the trees squeaking and whistling like creaking sign-boards. When the male utters his song, he spreads his wings slightly and puffs out his feathers. When the young are in the nest, the female, a little smaller and duller than the male, may be seen walking over lawns or open places in the neighborhood, hunting for grubs or bits of refuse, and then flying to the nests. From all the surrounding country, lines of such foragers converge in the chosen grove in midsummer. After the young are able to fly, the breeding-places are deserted, and either no Grackles are to be seen or else very large flocks are met with, blackening the fields or trees. Sometimes these flocks, or migrants from the north, are seen late in October, and occasionally in November.
The absence of red on the shoulder distinguishes the Crow Blackbird from the Red-wing, and the long, wedge-shaped tail, conspicuous in flight, from the Rusty Blackbird. This tail is often held keel-shaped, the middle feathers being depressed. On the ground the bird somewhat suggests a Crow; the gait, as in the case of all the blackbirds, is a walk. When Crow Blackbirds fly, their line of flight is level, not undulating, so that the members of a flock do not rise and fall as the other blackbirds do. Like several of the other blackbirds, it often jerks its tail upward when perched.
NOTE.— The Crow Blackbird, in the neighborhood of New York city, is the Purple Grackle (Quiscalus quiscula); about Boston and north ward it is the Bronzed Grackle (Quiscalus quiscula æneus). In the former the colors of the head and neck are not sharply defined from those of the body, as they are in the latter. In Connecticut intermediate races occur. The habits and notes of the two are practically the same.
Hoffmann – A Guide to the Birds of New England and Eastern New York (1904)