Fucking Hitchcock. If you’re going to make a horror movie about wildlife can you at least not make the premise based on a totally normal, non-threatening thing animals do as apart of their natural history? Because otherwise things like roosting get for the rest of time. https://twitter.com/ladbible/status/1252183395892936705

But since he did, and its clearly got a lot of folks concerned, let’s discuss!

These are great-tailed grackles. Grackles look similar to crows and other corvids but are in a completely different family of birds called blackbirds. Darren Clark

Great tailed-grackles are found throughout the American SW and down into South America. How they came to occupy these areas has a super interesting history reflecting both intentional and unintentional choices by people.

In the 1400s the Aztec emperor Ahuitzotl was so taken with their beautiful long black feathers that his armies captured some of the birds in the lowlands E of what is now Mexico City and brought them to “Mexico City” to breed and release them.

From there the birds continued to move north probably following the colonial conversion of land into the towns and agriculture of today.

For most of the year grackles wander around in smaller flocks but during the fall (when this video was taken) they congregate in enormous groups in the evening.

Like crows, grackles are adapted to living in human environments, so instead of seeking out woodland areas, they prefer to roost in town.

They especially like grocery store lots for big stores like HEB. There’s a couple of reasons for this. 1) they’re nice and warm at night due to the urban heat island effect (impervious materials like asphalt retain heat).

2) there’s tons of spilled/dumpster food, or dead bugs to pick off of parked cars. 3) the sparse trees lining the parking lots offer places to perch and sleep, while allowing for a quick exit in case a predator is detected. And 4) lethal harassment by people is unlikely.

If there’s any concern this is anything less than typical, just google “Texas grackle roost” and you find years of of local news stories about this very thing.

With so much to concern ourselves with in the world today, there’s no reason to add avian nonsense to the list.

Tis just the grackles having their fall parties above the HEB entrance doors. Merely this and nothing more.