Nightly Walmart Swarm Of Thousands Of Blackbirds

Alfred Hitchcock Birds night, again, at my least favorite local Walmart. Thousands of these devils fly about, as the sun sets, looking for a roosting location. The photo does zero justice to how bizarre this is.

Thousands of what I have been told are blackbirds, roosting on every tree, on every building. Filling the sky. 

It is like a dystopian nightmare of bird weirdness.

Til I was corrected by a self-proclaimed ornithologist, I thought these birds were grackles.

I have been seeing this blackbird swarm at Walmart, and neighboring stores, for about a month. And that first experience with the blackbird invasion was a doozy. I drove onto the Walmart parking lot, immediately startled by seeing so many birds, in the air, in trees, on the pavement, on the building's edge, lined up like sentinels doing guard duty.

I parked, opened the door to find myself startled by two extremely loud explosions across the street.

Explosions with fireballs.

I quickly assumed the birds had somehow shorted out a transformer. Or two.

And then walking towards the Walmart entry I saw the store was dark. The exploding transformers had knocked out Walmart's power. Oddly, the stores on the side of the street where the transformers exploded, still had power.

Why do these birds choose to roost each night at Walmart, and Walmart's neighbors, like ALDI and Home Depot? Where do the birds go during the day? Why don't they choose to nightly roost at a less congested by humans location, like Lucy Park, or Lake Wichita Park?

It is quite perplexing...