Identification
Black Birds
Every black bird looks glossy in the sun and flat black in the shade, so ignore the sheen. Tail shape, eye color and bill shape are what actually separate this group.
The short answer
- Judge tail shape first: grackles have long keeled tails, starlings have short square ones, and crows have fan-shaped tails while ravens have wedge-shaped tails.
- A European starling in fall and winter is heavily spotted with white and has a dark bill, and looks like a completely different bird from the glossy yellow-billed spring adult.
- A pale staring yellow eye means grackle or Brewer's blackbird; a dark eye on a similar bird usually means a female or a young bird.
- Brown-headed cowbirds are small and short-tailed with a thick conical bill and a dull coffee-brown head that vanishes in poor light.
- American and fish crows can usually be separated only by voice, so a silent crow in the Southeast is best left unidentified.
- Every native black bird here is protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act; the European starling and house sparrow are not.
A flock of black birds lands, the feeder empties in four minutes, and they are gone. Somewhere in that flock there were probably two or three species, and the differences between them are real and easy once you stop looking at the color. Gloss is the worst possible field mark here: the iridescence on a grackle or a starling is structural, so it flares purple and bronze in direct sun and disappears entirely in shade.
What does not change is the silhouette. A grackle has a long tail it can fold into a keel. A starling has almost no tail at all and looks like a dart. A cowbird is a small, stubby, thick-billed bird among giants. A crow is a different order of size, and a raven is a different order again.
This guide sorts the black birds by shape, covers the starling's two very different plumages, works through the crow and raven problem honestly, and ends with what is and is not legal, because that is the question readers ask most. The general method is on the identify hub, and the sibling guides cover small brown birds, red birds, yellow birds and blue birds.
Start with the tail, the bill and the walk#
| Species | Length | Tail | Bill | Eye |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| European starling | 8.5 in (21 cm) | Very short and square, giving a stubby dart shape in flight | Long, thin, pointed; bright yellow in spring, dark in fall | Dark |
| Brown-headed cowbird | 7.5 in (19 cm) | Short, squared | Short, thick, conical, finch-like | Dark |
| Red-winged blackbird | 8.5 in (22 cm) | Medium, rounded | Long, straight, sharply pointed | Dark |
| Brewer's blackbird | 9 in (23 cm) | Medium, squared | Slim, straight, sharp | Pale staring yellow in males, dark in females |
| Common grackle | 12.5 in (32 cm) | Long, and folded into a shallow keel or V in flight | Long, heavy, slightly downcurved at the tip | Bright yellow |
| Boat-tailed grackle | Males to 16 in (41 cm) | Very long, broad, strongly keeled | Long and heavy | Yellow on the Atlantic coast, dark in much of Florida and the Gulf |
| Great-tailed grackle | Males to 18 in (46 cm) | Enormous, longer than the body, deeply keeled | Long and heavy | Bright yellow |
| Fish crow | 15 in (38 cm) | Fan-shaped | Heavy, all black | Dark |
| American crow | 17.5 in (44 cm) | Fan-shaped | Heavy, all black | Dark |
| Common raven | 24 in (61 cm) | Wedge-shaped, clearly pointed in the middle | Massive, with shaggy throat feathers below | Dark |
Two behavioral notes cut across the whole group. All of these birds walk rather than hop, which separates them at a glance from sparrows and finches on the ground. And all of them except the crows and raven feed in dense flocks that arrive and leave together, which is what makes them a feeder management problem rather than an identification one.
Ignore the gloss, read the shape
Purple, bronze, green and blue sheen on a black bird is structural color that depends entirely on the angle of the light. Tail shape, eye color, bill shape and overall size are stable in any light, and they are what the tables on this page use.
The grackles#
A common grackle is the default across the eastern and central states: a long-tailed, yellow-eyed, glossy bird about 12.5 in (32 cm) long with an iridescent blue-purple head over a bronzy or purplish body, depending on which population you have. In flight it folds the tail into a shallow keel, which nothing else in your yard does. It arrives in spring in noisy flocks and empties feeders methodically.
Two coastal and southern relatives are larger and even longer-tailed. Boat-tailed grackles are birds of Atlantic and Gulf coastal marshes and beach parking lots. Great-tailed grackles are birds of Texas, the Southwest and increasingly the Great Plains, and the males have a tail that looks almost comically oversized. Both show extreme size differences between the sexes: males are large and glossy black, females are much smaller and a warm tawny brown that people regularly report as an entirely different species.
Where boat-tailed and great-tailed overlap on the western Gulf coast, and where either overlaps with common grackle, honest identification gets harder, and females are harder than males. Eye color helps on the Atlantic coast, where boat-tailed grackles are yellow-eyed, but Florida and Gulf birds are often dark-eyed, so it is not a rule you can apply everywhere. Range and habitat do more work than plumage in this group.
The starling is two different birds#
More people misidentify the European starling than any other black bird, because it does not look the same in April as it does in November. Both plumages are the same individual bird, and the change comes from feather wear, not a molt into different feathers: fresh fall feathers have pale tips that wear away over the winter to reveal the glossy black beneath.
| Feature | Spring and summer adult | Fall and winter adult | Juvenile, summer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Body | Glossy black with purple and green iridescence | Heavily spotted with white and buff over the whole body | Plain dusty gray-brown, no spots |
| Bill | Bright yellow | Dark gray-black | Dark |
| Legs | Reddish pink | Reddish pink | Reddish pink |
| Shape | Short-tailed, chunky, pointed triangular wings | Same | Same |
| Usual reaction | Reported as a small grackle | Reported as an unknown speckled bird | Reported as a gray bird begging from a black one |
The shape is the constant. A starling is short-tailed and front-heavy, with a long straight bill and wings that look sharply triangular in flight, and it walks with a hurried waddle. A grackle is long-tailed and rangy with a much heavier bill. Once you have that difference, the plumage stops mattering. Starlings are also outstanding mimics, and a bird on a chimney working through a stream of clicks, whistles and imitations of a killdeer or a car alarm is a starling every time.
Cowbirds, red-wings and Brewer's blackbirds#
A male brown-headed cowbird is a small, stocky, short-tailed blackbird with a glossy black body and a dull coffee-brown head, and the head color is genuinely hard to see in flat light. The other giveaway is the bill: short, thick and conical, like a finch's, quite unlike the long dagger every other blackbird carries. Females are plain gray-brown, covered in the small brown birds guide.
A male red-winged blackbird is glossy black with a red shoulder patch edged in yellow, and he controls how much of it shows. A displaying bird flares the whole epaulet; the same bird feeding quietly may hide it completely and show only a thin yellow line, which is why people report all-black birds with a yellow stripe every spring.
Brewer's blackbird is the western and midwestern equivalent, common in parking lots, feedlots and city parks. Males are glossy black with a purplish head sheen and a pale staring yellow eye; females are plain gray-brown with a dark eye, so a pair looks like two species. It is slimmer and shorter-tailed than a grackle. One more to know about is the rusty blackbird, a wet-woodland bird that in winter shows rusty feather edges and a yellow eye, and which has declined severely over recent decades, so a careful record of one is genuinely useful.
Crows, ravens and the pair you cannot see apart#
An American crow is entirely black including the bill and legs, has a fan-shaped tail, and says a clear caw. A common raven is much larger at about 24 in (61 cm), with a wedge-shaped tail that comes to a point in the middle, shaggy throat hackles, a heavier bill with a curved profile, and a deep croak. Ravens soar and tumble on flat wings; crows flap steadily and rarely soar for long. A lone bird gives you almost nothing, but the tail shape overhead is reliable.
Then there is the fish crow, which occurs along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts and up major river systems, and which is smaller than an American crow with slightly different proportions and no reliably visible plumage difference at all. The only dependable separator is voice: a fish crow gives a nasal, short, two-note uh-uh or a single nasal cah that sounds like a crow with a cold. If the bird does not call, the honest record is crow species. Experienced observers in the Southeast leave silent crows unidentified as a matter of routine, and so should you.
Two black-and-white birds get filed here as well. A black-billed magpie is unmistakable with its enormous tail and white shoulders and belly, and in flight the wings flash white. And a blue jay backlit against a bright sky reads as black, which is a structural color problem rather than a black bird problem.
Which of these are protected, and which are not#
This comes up constantly, and the answer is simpler than people expect. Almost everything on this page is a native bird protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which makes it illegal to kill the birds or destroy active nests and eggs without a permit.
| Species | Status in the United States | What that means at your feeder |
|---|---|---|
| Common, boat-tailed and great-tailed grackle | Native, protected | Exclude them, do not harm them |
| Red-winged blackbird | Native, protected | Exclude them, do not harm them |
| Brown-headed cowbird | Native, protected | Protected despite being a brood parasite; cowbird control is done only under permit |
| Brewer's and rusty blackbird | Native, protected | Rusty blackbird in particular is a species of conservation concern |
| American crow, fish crow, common raven | Native, protected | Crows are subject to regulated hunting seasons in many states, which is a separate matter from your yard |
| European starling | Non-native, not protected federally | Legal to exclude and to remove nests, and a genuine threat to native cavity nesters |
| House sparrow | Non-native, not protected federally | Same, and it is the other bird people ask about in this context |
Protected means protected, whatever the flock is doing to your budget
Limited federal provisions exist for controlling some blackbird species where they cause serious agricultural damage, and they do not cover a backyard feeder. State law can add protections beyond the federal baseline. If a flock is a real problem, the answer is exclusion and food choice, never poison, traps or shooting. Check with your state wildlife agency before doing anything beyond changing feeders.
What to do when the flock takes over#
Identification usually turns into a management question within a week, so here is the short version. Blackbirds and grackles are large, heavy, long-billed and clumsy on small perches, and starlings cannot cling well or feed upside down. Every workable tactic exploits one of those facts.
- Switch to safflower in hoppers and platforms. Cardinals, chickadees and finches take it, and grackles and starlings mostly do not. See safflower seed.
- Move sunflower into tube feeders with short perches, which grackles struggle to use, and consider caged feeders or weight-activated feeders that close under a heavy bird.
- Take mixed seed and cracked corn off the ground for a few weeks. Blackbird flocks are drawn to spilled grain more than to the feeder itself.
- Use upside-down suet feeders, which woodpeckers and nuthatches will use and starlings largely will not.
- Wait them out in spring. Grackle and blackbird flocks are often passing through, and two or three weeks of reduced offerings is usually enough.
The problem is usually the ground, not the feeder
A blackbird flock that keeps returning is often feeding on spilled seed below the station rather than at the ports. Fitting seed trays, using no-mess blends and raking underneath removes most of what is holding them. The full playbook is in grackles and blackbirds and starlings.
One last thing worth saying plainly: a grackle flock is not a moral failure of your yard. These are native birds doing what native birds do, and the same intelligence that makes them frustrating at a feeder makes them worth watching. Manage the food, not the birds, and read the individual accounts in the bird profiles when you want the whole story on any of them.
Frequently asked questions#
How do I tell a grackle from a starling?
Tail length settles it instantly. A common grackle is about 12.5 in (32 cm) with a long tail that folds into a keel in flight and a bright yellow eye. A European starling is about 8.5 in (21 cm), stubby and short-tailed with triangular pointed wings, a dark eye, and a bill that is yellow in spring and dark in fall.
What is the black bird covered in white spots?
A European starling in fall or winter plumage. Fresh autumn feathers have pale tips that make the bird look heavily speckled, and those tips wear away over the winter to reveal the glossy purple-green black of spring. The bill also turns from dark to bright yellow as the breeding season approaches.
How do you tell a crow from a raven?
Look at the tail in flight: a crow's is fan-shaped, a raven's is wedge-shaped and pointed in the middle. A raven is much bigger at about 24 in (61 cm) versus 17.5 in (44 cm), has a heavier curved bill and shaggy throat feathers, soars on flat wings, and croaks rather than caws.
Can you tell an American crow from a fish crow by sight?
Usually not. Fish crows are slightly smaller with marginally different proportions, but the ranges of variation overlap and there is no reliable plumage difference. Voice is the only dependable separator: a fish crow gives a short nasal uh-uh. A silent crow within the fish crow's range is best recorded as an unidentified crow.
Are grackles and blackbirds protected?
Yes. Common, boat-tailed and great-tailed grackles, red-winged blackbirds, Brewer's blackbirds, brown-headed cowbirds, crows and ravens are all native species protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The only two black or near-black feeder birds without federal protection in the United States are the European starling and the house sparrow, both introduced.
How do I keep blackbirds off my feeders without hurting them?
Change the food and the format. Safflower in hoppers, sunflower in short-perched tube or caged feeders, upside-down suet feeders, and no loose mixed seed or cracked corn on the ground. Clean up spillage, because a flock is usually feeding underneath rather than at the ports. Most spring flocks move on within a few weeks.