Mystery Black Songbird - Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA (1 Viewer)

[DennisSchaef]

So we went to Lowe's Hardware a few days ago, where the parking lot has small shade trees about 12 feet tall planted about. As we got out of the car we could hear very loud birdsong coming from one of the trees. Hopping about in the brances was a uniformly black bird with a short tail. He had a rather longish bill and bright yellow eyes, and its body was perhaps a bit bigger than a Robin's. And the song! It was singing musical phrases, always changing, as we had heard Northern Mockinbirds sing when we live in California. My wife drew this picture of the chanteuse:



Any ideas?

 

[Lisa W]

Might be a Common Grackle that you couldn’t see the green sheen on, could have lost the tail feathers?

 

[nartreb]

"black songbird with bright yellow eye" immediately had me thinking grackle as well, but they're not all that musical. Their song is usually nothing more than a short creak, at intervals of a few seconds.

Northern mockingbirds have long tails and pale bellies (but do have yellow eyes)... catbirds don't have yellow eyes...

Wrens can be musical, but are a bit small and don't have yellow eyes, and none are dark enough... still thinking...


I'm starting to wonder about an escaped pet. When you say "bright yellow eye", do you mean the eye itself, or more like this?
Common Myna - BirdForum Opus

 

[tom baxter]

I'd bet on Great-tailed Grackle. They sing pretty varied songs that are quite different from other grackles. Its also a very likely bird to encounter in a Albuquerque parking lot.

 

[KC Foggin]

I agree with Grackle!

 

[DennisSchaef]

Thanks for all the responses.

Hmmmm....well, I know that Grackles look like, and unless this bird had an unfortunate run-in with a drone that resulted in the loss of its long tail feathers, it wasn't a Grackle. My wife is a pretty good artist, and the drawing she made is a pretty good rendering of the beastie. I also thought of "escaped Myna bird" but this guy had no markings around its eyes at all.
Also, my Sibley book says that Grackles have a pretty coarse voice, and this one sang like Pavarotti.

 

[njlarsen]

More or less complete loss of tail feathers is not that uncommon in passerine birds.
Niels

 

[tom baxter]

More or less complete loss of tail feathers is not that uncommon in passerine birds.
Niels

I second this. I've been seeing a lot of Great "tailed-less" Grackles right now. It is a normal cycle of seasonal molting.

 

[rkj]

Looks like a starling.

 

[Butty]

...Great "tailed-less" Grackles right now. It is a normal cycle of seasonal molting.

I have no specific knowledge of moult in great-tailed grackle (nor in any icterid), but I should be really surprised if this was true. Simultaneous loss/replacement of all tail-feathers is definitely not a common moult-strategy in passerines.

 

[njlarsen]

I do not remember where it is but a previous thread in birdforum described that it is not uncommon for a passerine during their initial production of feathers to have points of weakness at the same distance from the body across all tail feathers. This could as far as I recall be due to perhaps nutritional or other stress happening when that group of feathers were growing. Such a tail with weakness could therefore easily break in all feathers and give a tailless bird. Therefore this would be more common in a young bird than in an older bird.

And forgive me if I remember wrong on some of this.
Niels

 

[DennisSchaef]

More or less complete loss of tail feathers is not that uncommon in passerine birds.
Niels

Interesting. That would explain the lack of tail feathers, but not the melodious song it was singing.

 

[njlarsen]

Interesting. That would explain the lack of tail feathers, but not the melodious song it was singing.

An app such as Merlin should allow you to listen to recordings of the two main contenders mentioned in the thread: Starling and GT Grackle
Niels

 

[tom baxter]

I have no specific knowledge of moult in great-tailed grackle (nor in any icterid), but I should be really surprised if this was true. Simultaneous loss/replacement of all tail-feathers is definitely not a common moult-strategy in passerines.

Well all I can say to that is that it is without a doubt something that I see frequently, specifically at this time of year. Other icterids (Boat-tailed Grackles included) do the same thing, specifically at this time of year. I have done marsh birding by boat tours in New Jersey for 10 years and it is a reliable annual occurrence to see tailless Boat-tailed Grackles in late summer/early fall. It’s something that frequently is pointed out as part of the tour, one year to the next. I have been in Lake Havasu AZ for the past month, where every day I see Great-tailed Grackles that appear tailless. Most have very short tail feathers growing in, but whether completely tailless or not, the impression of a tailless bird is extremely common here as well. My claims are anecdotal, but consistent, common, and you could easily see how I arrive at my original claim.

 

[AveryBartels]

I have no specific knowledge of moult in great-tailed grackle (nor in any icterid), but I should be really surprised if this was true. Simultaneous loss/replacement of all tail-feathers is definitely not a common moult-strategy in passerines.

While the moulting of tail feathers is not precisely simultaneous, in most (in fact all that I can think from my ~15 years experience banding) North American songbirds the loss of tail feathers occurs over a pretty short period of time meaning that individuals will have a substantially shorter tail than "normal" for a week or two. It is not normal for songbirds to say, completely moult in a few tail feathers then move on to a new set...ie, maintain a normal length tail throughout the moult process. So, there is no reason to not think that this bird was simply mid-moult

 

[Butty]

What you say suggests that all adult passerines everywhere are liable - very commonly - to have a substantially (ie hugely and obviously) shorter tail at some point during autumn. I don't believe this to be so.

 

[stevethehydra]

I tend to see magpies (in England) which have lost their tails in spring or early summer, if anything. My assumption is that it's not a "normal" phase of moult so much as something that could happen from (e.g.) a close run-in with a cat or other predator (cat grabs the tail as bird flies away), but that might be more likely to happen at certain times of year when the feathers are looser?

I don't know grackles, but your sketch of this bird definitely gives me the same "unbalanced" impression as the tailless magpies I see - proportions of a bird that "should" have a long tail and is compensating with an unusually upright posture for losing it, and looks "top heavy" as a result.

 

[tom baxter]

I tend to see magpies (in England) which have lost their tails in spring or early summer, if anything. My assumption is that it's not a "normal" phase of moult so much as something that could happen from (e.g.) a close run-in with a cat or other predator (cat grabs the tail as bird flies away), but that might be more likely to happen at certain times of year when the feathers are looser?

I don't know grackles, but your sketch of this bird definitely gives me the same "unbalanced" impression as the tailless magpies I see - proportions of a bird that "should" have a long tail and is compensating with an unusually upright posture for losing it, and looks "top heavy" as a result.

This is from the birds of the world encyclopedia by Cornell on Great-tailed Grackle moult. It seems that they do in fact go tailless for about 2 weeks.

 

[njlarsen]

This is from the birds of the world encyclopedia by Cornell on Great-tailed Grackle moult. It seems that they do in fact go tailless for about 2 weeks.

The variation of adaptations never cease to amaze! There seems to be some fundamental differences between moult patterns in European passerines and these grackles. I do not remember seeing tailless magpies (to just mention one) with a frequency that would indicate they all become tailless as part of their cycle.
Niels

 

[rkj]

I still think it looks like a Starling, but I will add that all of the Great-tailed Grackles I have seen in the last few weeks have had short tails. This species does seem particularly to molt its tail feathers all together.