This afternoon a cacophony of grackles descended on our back yard and the neighbors'. They must come by our yard every year at about this time - it is not that I have any memory of them doing so, but when I think of 'large numbers of loud black birds' the image that comes to mind is of grackles settling restlessy in the tops of scraggy sycamore and cherry trees, which look tattered and gawky in their last few rumpled yellow leaves, as the birds lift and settle in constant arrowing flights of two or three birds, scrawking among themselves ceaselessly.

Grackles are also what populate fantasy novels in my head when large numbers of crows are called for. American crows, in my experience, simply don't act like the fantasy ones, but grackles are abundant, gluttonous, and, if not ill-omened, certainly unwelcomed. (My favorite songbirds are starlings and grackles. They are beautiful like oil spills in parking lots.)

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( Yuletide wishes )

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The dentist said I passed! Yay!