Boat-Tailed Grackle

Getting caught up, here and back into the swing of my  normal weekly events. Sunday is a good day for inspiration on The Write Stuff, often about things I have pinned to the  Inspiration Boards that surround my work area. And nothing inspires me more than nature.

This week, I discovered the grackles are back! Fall migration has officially begun, and they are busily congregating everywhere they can, including local parking lots where they might find a few dropped bits of food items. There are several kinds of grackles, but the ones who make the biggest impression on me are the boat-tailed variety, and I recognize them as a harbinger of autumn, the same way folks up north recognize the robin as the first sign of spring.

Hey! It’s Fall, Y’all!!

Grackles are among my favorite of birds. I even mentioned them in a somewhat poignant scene in Finding Hunter. (See? Inspiration.) They are handsome birds, with a lovely iridescent sheen to their glossy black feathers, except for the female. She’s a plainer, mostly brown bird, but the males seem quite intent in impressing her, anyway.

You’ll Always Be Beautiful, To Me!

They are bold. Even fierce, if need be. 

See? Bold! As this snail kite is learning.

And did I say fierce? Possibly foolishly so.

And best of all, they are full of attitude, strutting around convinced of their own importance, and announcing it to the world with every step they take.

Life is good, when you’re a grackle!

REALLY good!

My favorite autumn poem is one by Amy Lowell, called Purple Grackles. I hope some of you will take the time to read it HERE.  It’s  truly lovely, as all her poetry is.

Let me sing you the songs of autumn! 

In the  meantime, enjoy the pics! FALL has arrived in Florida, at last. Temps dropped twenty degrees last night, and the grackles are here! Hope you’ve been inspired by them! I have. But then, grackles always inspire me.