🐦‍⬛ Defensive grackles at Waterloo Records

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It typically happens in springtime – black birds with whitish-yellow eyes perch on top of Waterloo Records and watch customers as they walk inside, sometimes diving down and squawking. This is when Waterloo Records goes into grackle mode.

The birds are protecting their young. Grackles nest in the downtown store’s palm trees, and sometimes, a baby grackle will fall to the ground before it’s able to fly, said co-owner John T. Kunz. With the baby bird on the ground, the adult birds will protect it from anyone they consider a threat by nipping at people’s heads and making noise.

“The whole clan starts assuming that anybody walking near their baby is a predator that wants to eat it or harm it,” Kunz said.

This act of nature becomes a small issue for the iconic record store as birds swoop down around customers walking into the store. Earlier this month, the store’s Instagram page had a warning: “We have a very protective grackle defending her fallen baby by our front door. Please use our north most door to avoid getting divebombed.”

The fallen bird, which did not die, prompted about half a dozen grackles to form a line of defense outside the store, Kunz said.

“This just happened (Thursday) and I know it went on for several hours. I left here around 7:15, 7:30 p.m. and they were still on-guard and squawking, as only grackles can, at everybody that got near,” he said.

But by Friday, the baby bird was gone and the grackles were no longer playing security guard. Grackles have been through this routine before – Kunz guesses that incidents like these have been happening a couple times a year for the last eight to 12 years. To be clear, no one has ever been seriously injured, he said.

Kunz himself was attacked by a grackle about three years ago. He was walking into work when a grackle swooped down and clipped the back of his head. The bird didn’t do much damage – Kunz’s head was protected by a black Waterloo Records baseball cap.