My travels around the Aransas Bay area today made it necessary to take a ride on the ferry to get to the headquarters/exhibit area for the Whooping Crane Festival that was taking place in Port Aransas this weekend. On the return trip I glanced in my rearview mirror and noticed that there were some Great-tailed Grackles along for the ride (a couple of females were perched on the bed of my truck and there were some males on the car behind). There were about 7 or 8 total and, when we got about 150-200 feet from shore, they all flew on ahead.

Why expend the energy to fly the whole 1/4 mile or so when you can ride?