Kittysmith's vocal discription sounds like a European Starling to me. Those of us familiar with the Common Grackle know it's song is little more than the sound of a rusty hinge. Being human, there are definitely things that I don't care to have on my property. Right now the Japanese beetles are terrible, I can't remember a July without them. If I never see rats again it will be fine with me. European starlings and house sparrows are little more than feathered vermin. We can either discourage these birds and have a greatly improved environment or live in a "Polyanna" world, its a choice each one of us has to make. Sam

thanks i wonder how they get by because there has been no decent crops of pinyon nuts for 10 years around here. Fungus and beetles have killed most of the pinyon trees and lots of hard spring freezes have ruined the nuts. I guess they have found different substitutes for them

Sorry about the double delay post. Except for sparrows and squirrels, I don't actually have a lot of pest birds. There are a total of 4 black birds and 2 blue jays. They are hardly an annoyance compare to the 50 house sparrows and 10 squirrels. The sparrows and squirrels will eat everything (though squirrels won't eat thistle seeds). I actually like to see the blue jay more and I set the blue jay type food away from the main feeder and the blue jay has not bother the other birds ever since. They end up fighting the squirrels for the nuts. By the way, is it bad to feed birds raw peanuts? I recall someone saying that raw peanut may be toxic. Paul

Beautiful pictures! Yes, they are sandhill cranes. Whooping cranes, along with being very rare, are almost entirely white, with mainly black wing tips visible in flight. Their migration patterns seem to be more responsive to local weather conditions than is the case with other birds. Here in NM, there is a huge wintering site for these cranes at Bosque del Apache NWR, but their numbers there fluctuate regularly in response to storms or warm periods. For them, an easy daylong flight of a couple hundred miles can mean the difference between nasty winter conditions, and nice mild overwintering grounds. This is exactly the case for the cranes at Monte Vista, CO and the Middle Rio Grande Valley in NM. The former is used by the birds in the fall, while the latter is good all winter!