Common Grackle

Open sand of beaches, dunes and the hollows between them.

Shallow ponds in Coastal Plain depressions, such as limesinks and the ponds in some Carolina bays, that rise and fall with the seasons.

Wet ground taken over by weedy or introduced plants after disturbance, such as common reed, Chinese tallow or tamarisk stands; the upland counterpart is roadsides, fields and disturbed ground.

Forests and open woodlands on dry ridges and slopes, often oak or pine.

Borders of forests, clearings and shrubby thickets.

Marshes along tidal rivers where the water is fresh but rises and falls with the tide.

Flat, poorly drained uplands and terraces with oaks, sweetgum and sometimes loblolly pine, wet in winter and dry in summer, but neither a floodplain nor a swamp.

Salt-pruned forests and shrub thickets behind coastal dunes.

Forests between dry and moist, often oak-hickory on slopes.

Forests on moist but not wet ground, such as rich slopes and ravines.

Wet, open, peaty mountain wetlands fed by seepage, often with sphagnum moss.

High mountain forests of beech, yellow birch and sugar maple, including boulderfield forests.

Open, fire-kept longleaf pine stands over grasses and wildflowers on wet to moist sandy soil.

Dense evergreen shrub wetlands and bay forests on wet, acid peat of the Coastal Plain.

Coastal marshes flooded by salty or brackish tides.

Dry, deep-sand ridges with longleaf pine and turkey oak, kept open by fire.

Places where groundwater keeps the soil or rock wet, such as seepage slopes and spring runs.

Planted or intensively managed stands of pine or hardwoods grown for timber; a land use rather than a natural community.