I might have shared the story on this forum before - we once rescued a grackle nestling whose nest had blown out of a tree (his siblings were already dead) After devouring about 1/2# of hamburger in just one week (he had to be fed every 15 min. or so) and drinking from an eyedropper what must have been a gallon of water he stabilized and soon began to turn from an ugly, mostly bald blob into a plump fuzzball, then into a sleek purple-blue-green iridescent grackle. He stayed with us the whole summer, enjoyed our company so much that he would always fly back after scanning the garden for bugs, amusing us with his antics such as trying to steal food from our plates, prying the fingers of a fist apart with his beak to find enclosed treats etc. In fall his exploratory circles got larger and larger, sometimes lasting most of a day. We noticed him hanging out with other grackles and red-winged blackbirds (they form mixed migration flocks). One day, he didn't return to roost on our porch: he'd most likely joined a flock migrating to winer quarters. My family and I never missed an animal so much.
We had named him Edgar, after Edgar Allen Poe, because he seemed so often like a miniature raven (he came to us when called by his name and not incidentally distracted by something more important).
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