“Austin’s flocks of grackles…can sometimes reach Hitchcockian proportions.” Austin Chronicle

“Grackles fucking love HEB.” reddit

Unless you’ve encountered them, you won’t understand. In Austin, trees turn from green to black for the masses of dark birds perched within them. Power lines take on new shapes as thousands of birds line up along them. One time I left my car on a side street downtown after the battery died and returned in the morning to find it literally doused with grackle shit, like I’d run it through a carwash spewing paint instead of water. People turned their heads as I drove by. The city has tried to run them off with bird screech recordings, laser guns, cannons, trained falcons. They are still here. So it’s no surprise, sitting at a Central Market cafe table before shopping on a warm Sunday afternoon, to find a fearless female inching toward us. Her kin were in the trees causing trouble. She was hoping for a french fry.

January 25, 2015