I googled it and that seems to be what she is. Do you think she has a nest of babies? So far, none of my feral cats have even noticed or tried to get her or to her nest. It's under the eaves on my front porch. I hope they're all ok. I just don't know why she'd build a nest so close to where I feed the ferals.

But I didn't know what kind. Turns out there are a lot more grackle species than I realized. From wWikipedia:

its just a common "amerucan crow"

after further review, it is difficult to judge size from the photo, , so perhaps, if this thing is very large, it could be a raven.

I think the boat tailed grackle is probably it.

great-tailed grackle or Mexican grackle (Quiscalus mexicanus). They are ubiquitous here in Texas. The give away is the yellow eye, barely visible in the image.

Probably free shipping.

... this morning one flew off to tell the others. They'll wait until the cats go nap and crowd the bowls.

They're a mixture of interesting and a pain in the patoot.

When I lived in northern Illinois. They ambushed and harassed all the birds at the feeders everyday. And they are very smart, travel in gangs and make a sound that is less than pleasant.

That’s my same experience with them exactly.

Like street fighting gangs in a major city.

Three or four of them will devour everything in about 5 minutes. I know it’s pointless because they’ll just come back later …. But I want the little birds to have something, too.

At my place. We tried all kinds of hazing methods... my favorite is a slingshot using buckeyes, but those birds, upon first realization they have return fire, scatter to find a hiding spot where they can see you but you can't get them. The opposite of grouse who think you can't see them hiding behind the blade of grass that obscures their eye.

I don't recall what we ended up doing, maybe it was to just scatter the feed all over the place so there was no single concentration anywhere that they could maraud. I wasn't willing to give up having coffee with my cardinals and waxwings.

Part of the rental agreement was that we would shoot any grackle in the property on sight.

Yes, a Phd ornithologist from Cornell, member of the Audubon Society.

And she hated grackles.