Great-tailed Grackle

Description: 16-17" female 12-14" tail very long and keel-shaped, male black with iridescent purple on back and breast, female smaller brown with pale breast, eyes always yellow, Common Grackles smaller and often have brown eyes	Habitat: Parks, towns, parking lots at fast-food restaurants, ranches, coastal marshes, wetlands, flatlands with trees. Common. Usually near water. Very weird, unusual song
Nesting: 3-4 pale blue eggs, spotted and scrawled with brown and purple, placed in a bulky nest of sticks, grass, and mud in a tree	Range: resident in California, Colorado in west southward to Louisiana, Gulf Coast
Voice: variety of whistles, clucks, and hissing sounds	Diet: Insects, lizards, aquatic invertebrates and vertebrates, ectoparasites from domestic stock, bird eggs, nestlings; fruit, grain, grass seeds.

Notes: extending range eastward toward Florida, nests placed close together in colonies of few to thousands, male disputes are low key, but females squabble over choice of nest site and steal nest materials from each other

When present in Oklahoma: present statewide year-round, more abundant during summer