Two quick shots through thorns was all the Carib Grackle gave me.

The branch was dry and bare, the thorns long and spaced just unevenly enough to look accidental. One of them curved sharply upward, catching the soft light from the open lawn. The Carib Grackle was perched low on the cross-branch, body angled, head tilted, eyes set forward. Most of its form was in shadow—black on black—but its pale bill caught a faint glint of colour, and the eye shone with that sharpness these birds always carry. The larger vertical branch sliced the frame in half, quiet but unavoidable. It wasn’t in the way, exactly. Just part of where the bird had landed. I’d been sitting on the veranda, tracing the southern lawn with my lens, panning slowly along the bougainvillea. The grackle came in quickly—landed, settled, then shifted once. I moved too. Stepped lightly, leaned forward, watched for that clean sight line that never really came. I fired off two frames before it flew—no warning, no stretch of wings—just gone, slipping behind the wall into the neighbour’s garden. It wasn’t my first time seeing this bird. I’d seen another earlier in the week, walking across the short grass just next door. The mower had passed through recently, and the bird seemed to know that meant easier pickings. A quick dart forward, a peck, then pause. Efficient. Later, on the Saturday we arrived in Port Elizabeth, I spotted a pair—male and female—moving through the scrub between houses near the dock. Always in motion. Never quite still long enough for a proper photograph. This one, though—this brief moment on the thorned vine—was the clearest I’ve managed. It wasn’t ideal. The branch divides the frame. The light isn’t quite what I wanted. But still. It’s the best I have of the Carib Grackle so far. And sometimes you just have to hold onto what you get. ### Like this: Like Loading... Birds Wildlife Backyard BirdingBirdingBirding LiferBirds of the CaribbeanCarib GrackleDorsetshire HillIsland BirdsLesser AntillesLifer BirdQuiscalus lugubrisSaint VincentTropical BirdsWindward Islands