UPDATE: June 7, 2018
This 10-year-old article has generated a lot of interest in Las Vegas, Nevada. Originally written in April 2008, the article used birding slag from a decade ago. The slang is no longer used, for good reason. Birds are not junk.
The text below was written on April 10, 2008 and revised on June 7, 2018. Comments made prior to June 7, 2018 are referring to the original text.
Every year in April I attend the PBS Technology Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. To me it it’s a bit odd that a public broadcasting meeting is held in a casino in Las Vegas but it’s planned to coincide with the National Association of Broadcasters convention which is always held in Las Vegas in April.
So here I am. For several days we sit in the dark watching Powerpoint. I must say that my favorite presentations are the HD TV segments from nature shows. Even so, when I’m in the meetings I just want to see birds. When the Powerpoint ends I step outside.
The birds in the parking lot are so common and prolific that my heart does not go pitta-pat when I see them. They are good to see, but they are ordinary. (A decade+ ago, birders jokingly called ordinary birds “junk birds.” No, they are not junk.)
The great-tailed grackles are the ones who stand out. They are incredibly common and incredibly loud. This is part of courtship. The males chase the females and each other. They swagger down the sidewalk. They perch up high and shout (click here on the Song and Calls link!) They expand their throat feathers and tails and point their bills at the sky. They have bill-pointing contests to see whose bill is tallest. They are so … Las Vegas.
They are also expanding their range. The photo above was taken by Chuck Tague in Belize. He’s also seen them in Arizona and I hear you can find them in Iowa now.
Maybe they’re following the casinos. 😉
p.s. My favorite place for birding near Las Vegas is Henderson Bird Preserve. Click here for a list of birding hotspots near Las Vegas.
(photo by Chuck Tague)
This comment has nothing to do with “junk birds in Vegas”, but I’m so excited to tell you that I just spotted a peregrine falcon in my backyard!
Actually, I noticed him in my yard a few months ago, perched on a distant bird feeder. I grabbed my camera and took a shot through the window, but the picture is fairly grainy (‘tho I can send it to you if you are interested.)
He swoops into the yard sporadically. But I got a close view of him just a few minutes ago through my binoculars. He flew in and rested on a tree close to the house. No doubt this is a peregrine! (I had my copy of The Audubon Sociaety Field Guide to North American Birds nearby, so I was able to confirm that he was a carbon copy of the one pictured in the book!) Unfortunately, by the time I could grab my camera, he flew away.
Order king meal worms on line and leave them outside where he can see, in a plastic plant plate so worms dont get away. Soon you’ll have a few Falcons hanging in your backyard like i do!
Hi Kate
When I was in Las Vegas last year in March, I heard that sound coming from a tree and it was quiet frightful. I couldn’t see the bird but the sound definitely startled me to move closer to the curb.
Thanks for this! I just got back from attending a convention in Vegas. I looked all over to try and find someone who knew what they were. Can these have brown heads? Your description matches but some had distinctly brown heads but too large to be cow birds.
“Can these have brown heads?”
Joanna,
I believe the female grackles have brown heads (primarily the heads although I have seen other parts of them be brown as well). I have lived here since ’84 and Kate is correct, they have become very common.
Thanks Kate for clearing up a mystery for us. We just spent Halloween in Las Vegas. While walking along the strip, we heard the birds but were unable to spot them, at first. It wasn’t a call we recognized (we live in Maine). Later in the day, we spotted 2 of them pointing their bills at the sky and making those wild calls. They fit in with the noisy costumed crowd! I guess with all the craziness going on, no one seemed to notice them. It seems a shame that many people go through life and miss opportunities, like this one, to observe birds that may not be native to their part of the country. It was surprising to see that they have adapted so easily to life in Vegas on the strip. They weren’t even frightened of the noise and crowds. We did a search on “birds in las vegas” and we found your site which solved the mystery. Thanks!
I think you may have solved a mystery for me. I love Vegas and always take notice of the different vegetation and birds that I see there. It’s amazing what one takes notice of when they look beneath all the lights and sounds of the Strip.
Anyhow there’s this one type of bird that has always amused me. There are lots in the Wildlife Habitat at the Flamingo and there are often a bunch in different trees, especially conifers. They’re a good sized bird and very animated but I had no idea what they area. We definitely don’t have them where I live. One of their calls almost sounds like they’re laughing at me. Another call is a whistle that goes up in pitch as it crescendos. I never see the black ones in your photo though, only brown ones. I think it’s a Great-Tailed Grackle as you called it.
There is a picture of one hanging out at the Terrace Point Cafe at the Wynn (good taste these birds have. lol) http://www.flickr.com/photos/30078953@N08/4099345762/
I didn’t take the photo but it’s from a Tripadvisor review I was just reading. It looks like what’s in your photo except it’s brown like all the ones I normally see.
Yes, you saw great-tailed grackles! The females are brown, the males are black. That’s a nice picture of a female great-tailed grackle at the Wynn. I’ll bet she was looking for potato chips. 😉
Thanks very much for the confirmation. I always love watching them when I’m on vacation in Vegas. They have quite the antics and even in the evening, they seem to be active.
Nice website. I’ll have to keep visiting now that I stumbled upon it on the “mystery bird” search.
Thanks so much. I’m going to be at my daughter’s wedding in mid May at the Wynn, but desperately hope to see a few new birds, if there are any spare moments. Any other hopes besides the great tailed grackle for someone from eastern Canada (I’ll be missing our migrating warblers)
Sandra, if you have a car there are at least four great birding places close to Las Vegas, listed here in order from great! to good.
Henderson Bird Preserve also described here on my blog Excellent birding!
Corn Creek Field Station The only water for miles. Phainopeplas.
Mount Charleston, NV Mountain habitat. Western Bluebirds!
Red Rock Canyon Good hiking, scenic!
I’m from the U.K. and was in Vegas for my daughters wedding. Being a birder I too saw many Great tailed Grackles as well as a couple of Northern Mockingbirds. Most surprisingly though I found an American Coot in the pool of the Mirage ( obviously waiting to see the volcano erupt !! ) also a couple of G.T Grackles here on the rocks.
I’ve seen that too. I can’t remember exactly which bird but I think it was a blue-winged teal that I saw on one of the “lakes” in front of a casino on The Strip. The mallards are used to the volcano. 😉
I too heard a bird while in Las Vegas and wanted to know what it was. I didn’t see the all brown female,but I saw brownish coloring under the tail as one swooped away.
They were quite loud and did alot of calling back and forth in the trees.
I am happy to know now,thanks!
I heard a bird this morning, I’ve heard this screech followed by a whistle before and always wondered what it was. Looking up into the tree I saw a fair sized black bird with a really long beak, yellow eyes, and I thought at first it was some kind of Grackle but it didn’t have the long tail. Every time it called out it raised it’s head and pointed its beak to the sky. I can’t find a picture similar to it on the sites. Does anybody have any idea of what kind of bird this is?
Clive, your description — especially the yellow eyes — sounds like a Grackle. Grackles are black iridescent birds with yellow eyes. If you are Las Vegas it’s a great-tailed grackle like the one pictured in this blog article. Common Grackles are similar but live in the Rockies and eastward. Boat-tailed Grackles live in Florida and Gulf and southern-states Atlantic coast. All three species point their beaks in the air to show dominance.
I leave in Vegas near Boulder Station. I have several bird feeder. All I see are pigeon, mockingbirds, and sparrows. Nothing with any amount of color. No grackles either. Is there anything I can do to get some colorful birds in my yard?
Diane, provide water and shelter (bushes) for the birds and more will come. They will be especially attracted to water because Nevada is so dry.
I have a bird bath for water and a tree in my yard. There’s really no place to grow bushes except I do have rose bushes in my garden.
Diane, you’ve done all the right things. I can’t think of anything else to suggest.
I moved to Son City Summerlin 1 month ago. Lively song birds. Sing all day. Much smaller than Gracle All of a sudden they disappeared. I loved to listen to them. Where are they?.
To the author of this article: shame on you! I am a new resident of the fair and proud Valle de las Vegas, and I implore you to cease and desist from calling our winged buddies “junk.”
Diane, Irene,
I recently moved into a decent backyard and have erected a feeder paradise. Over the last few weeks I have set up 6 feeders, and I have a diverse host of squabbling squawkers, black birds, doves, songbirds, some weird guys that I can’t identify, even hummingbirds at my hummingbird feeder. The vibrantly colored birds come as they will. Smith’s sells about 15 brands of seed – I buy all of them and make my own mix to ensure that there’s something for everybody.
Michael
Michael, happy to see you’re reading my old post. This one from April 10, 2008 was the first in a series so it might have given you the wrong impression. It describes the birds seen near the casinos — mostly common birds such as great-tailed grackles. The next post describes the wonderful birds to be found at Henderson: https://www.birdsoutsidemywindow.org/2008/04/12/great-birding-near-las-vegas/
I’ve come back to bird in Vegas many times because it has such diverse habitat from desert to mountains. Lots of Life Birds! Here are a few more of my parts about the wonders of birding in Vegas:
https://www.birdsoutsidemywindow.org/2011/04/07/rare-in-the-east/
https://www.birdsoutsidemywindow.org/2011/04/08/the-bunting-of-the-west/
https://www.birdsoutsidemywindow.org/2011/04/11/mt-charleston-western-bluebird/
I highly recommend Las Vegas birding to my Eastern friends who want to see Western birds.
There are no “junk” birds. Indeed there is no “junk” life.
The Great Tailed Grackle eat: Prey includes grasshoppers, beetles, spiders, bees, wasps, snails, worms, slugs, and moths. Grackles also feed on tadpoles, frogs, lizards, snakes, fish, and small mammals such as mice and shrews, as well as bird eggs and nestlings.
No “junk,” life has everything under control. I am glad that the birds keep mice and spiders in check.
I like the birds they look like tiny airplanes and they are so loud, they own Las Vegas.
I’d rather hear the sound of birds than cars and last but not least each and every bird on earth has a very specific role of maintenance, seed spreading and singing.
So weird to read this in 2019. I live off The Strip a mile or so, and like 10 years ago, there were hoards (200-400) of these grackles who suddenly took up home at night in these five big evergreen trees at this apartment complex. It was a trip to see like a flock of 500 of these beautiful creatures come to roost in these trees nightly.
Flash forward 10 years or so, and there are a countable 10-12 grackles hanging on by a thread, competing for food with pigeons, sparrows and morning doves where I live. The trees have been butchered by apartment owners, making less branches and spots for all birds, and the insect population seems to be in dire trouble. One poor grackle mother had two babies this Spring, but the heat, human change and lack of food was apparently too much as I found their corpses last week. It was sad. I try to pinpoint feed the grackles, but Time and Man has done a number on them here (2007-2019) in this particular complex. I hope they are thriving elsewhere. They are truly beautiful, but the shyest of the 5 species I look out for (hummingbirds, morning doves, sparrows, pigeons and grackles.) I hear one now! Wow. Magic.
Anyways, for the bird freaks, I have lived here 22 years and seen only two other species I remember: a turkey vulture once way up floating like a plane and a couple red-winged Blackbirds. I do remember seeing someone’s parakeet on a power line once an d a turkey actually cranked through here once also. My old cat Saki was unsure what to make of a turkey. I doubt she thought it was a bird.
Every day I walk by the store the same black bird flys over my head and land on top of the roof ..it don’t bother other ppl..it only bother me
Just visited vegas 4/20 2021 while smoking a fat one i heard a black bird make the strangest crowing noise i thought it was the grass then i decided to google it. I’ve never heard a bird make that noise and I’m from New Orleans