Great-tailed Grackle

How to find it

Start in a town. Parks, plazas, farms, landfills and backyards are where it is easy to find, and it is often seen in large flocks. Grackles often roost and nest in shade trees in towns, so plazas and parks are reliable places to look. On trips we build, large noisy roosts of hundreds of birds often sit in the central plaza of towns, especially in the northern Nicoya Peninsula. Males in display, bill pointed straight up, make a striking pose to watch.

How to recognise it

The male is about 43 cm long, with a black body and a strong purple shine. The long tail folds into a deep V.

Birders pick it out by four marks:

- big size

- long wedge-shaped tail

- heavy bill

- staring pale eyes

Adults have pale yellow eyes and a black bill and legs. The female is much smaller, about 33 cm, dark brown above and grayish brown below, with a pale buff eyebrow.

Juveniles look like females but are more sooty brown, with paler buff underparts. Their eyes are dark gray-brown, not yellow.

What it sounds like

Recording: Carl Ramirez, CC BY 4.0, source, read 4 Nov 2026.

Behaviour and diet

The zanate is very gregarious and feeds mostly on the ground. In Costa Rica it eats berries, large fruits, grain, soil larvae, cattle ticks, small fish, lizards, eggs and chicks of other birds, carrion and garbage. It sometimes follows cattle, and along the coast it flips small stones with its bill.

Nests are in loose colonies in mangroves, or in dense colonies in palms or large trees on dry land, mostly 5 to 20 m up. Males in courtship or aggressive display perch with the bill pointed straight up.

Where it lives

It is common in open, deforested edge areas and around towns, from the lowlands up to middle elevations. It now occurs widely on both slopes, up to at least 1500 m, and is still uncommon in areas of extensive forest.

Grackles were first limited to marshes, coastal mudflats, mangroves and estuaries, then spread to almost any area without forest, including crops, savanna, towns and suburbs. Early in the 1900s it lived only along the Pacific coast. It reached the Caribbean lowlands in the early 1960s and the Central Valley in the 1970s.

When to see it

Breeding runs from January to July, when nesting colonies form.

Similar birds

Other common black birds are Bronzed Cowbird, Groove-billed Ani and Melodious Blackbird, but their shapes differ, which helps tell them apart. The grackle is the large one with the long tail. The smaller Nicaraguan Grackle lives only in freshwater wetlands around Los Chiles, so grackles in towns or parking lots away from wetlands are probably Great-tailed.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

Costa Rican Spanish names include Clarinero, Clarinero grande, Sanate, Zanate and Zanate Grande, which is the standard AOCR name. Many people wrongly think the zanate came from abroad, but it is native. One writer guesses it may be the most disliked bird in the country.

Status and conservation

It is a resident species on the AOCR list, globally of Least Concern, and in Costa Rica it is generally regarded as a pest, with flocks a worry for corn farmers.

Photography tips

Males in courtship or aggressive display perch with the bill pointed straight up, a striking pose to photograph. Town plazas and parks with shade trees are easy places to find them, and males can look rather handsome at close range.