Yesterday, while walking Country Club Drive in Aventura, I heard and saw what I believe was the rare sub-species of boat-tailed grackle (torreyi). I first heard the familiar jeeb song, punctuated by the whirring (wing flutter) sounds of the boat-tailed grackle, then noticed the yellow eye. The bird was in a flock of BTGR that was making a commotion near a fruiting shrub. There were no common grackles visible and no creaky, rusty-gate songs. I have a picture (posted on my eBird report, a link for which will be included below), but I didn’t get a recording.
I haven’t put it in as BTGR (torreyi) yet because I didn’t get full-length pictures of the bird and I don’t have a video recording of the bird singing. But it made me think that I don’t know enough about sightings of any of the sub-species down here. For me personally, westoni is the only BTGR I’ve ever seen in south Florida. Anybody here have any thoughts on the sub-species showing up here?
Greg Hamlin
eBird link:
https://ebird.org/checklist/S98903470