For this installment of "From the Archives," we answer a reader question about the monk parakeets and grackles in Austin.

The Common Grackle – A medium-sized blackbird whose plumage is black, and has a sheen that is glossy and iridescent. Common Grackles range over almost all of eastern North America east of the Rockies, ...

My friend John loved grackles. He believed that, to be true to the oft-trumpeted independent Texas spirit, we should change our state bird. Why share the mockingbird, he said, with four other states, ...