Greater Antillean Grackle
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![]() Greater Antillean Grackle in Puerto Rico
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Scientific classification | ||||||||||||||
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Quiscalus niger (Boddaert, 1783) |
The Greater Antillean Grackle (Quiscalus niger) is a grackle found throughout the Greater Antilles and the Cayman Islands as well as smaller, nearby islands. Like all Quiscalus grackles, it is a rather large, gregarious bird. The male is glossy black with a large tail; the female has a smaller tail and is brownish. It lives largely in heavily settled areas.
It has a variety of local names such as Cling-cling or variations of this name in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. It is commonly known as Chango in Puerto Rico or as ChinchilĂn (onomatopoeic for its song) in the Dominican Republic.
[edit] References
- BirdLife International (2006) Species factsheet: Quiscalus niger Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 22/11/2006.
- Bond, James. Birds of the West Indies. (fifth edition). Houghton-Mifflin, 1993.