The Grackle and the Tennis Ball: A Love Story

Kong didn’t know it yet, but on the morning of May 15, as he sat humbly on the damp lawn of his home in North Austin’s Wooten neighborhood, true love was on its way. His globular body was littered with teeth marks, his yellow blanket stained loose. Her expression was as merciless as Mona Lisa’s. It wouldn’t be long before he was scooped up and thrown unceremoniously into the trash, impoverished and forgotten and cruelly unloved. Kong pondered this as he saw a flash of purple and black flash in the maple tree above him, followed by a screeching “readle-eak“, which can only mean “I’m here, my love. I’m finally here for you.”

Meanwhile, at home, Austin Psychotherapist Grace Gould held virtual therapy with a patient. Throughout the session, he could hear arousing birdsong in the backyard. After the call was over, Gould peeked out the back window to see what was making all the fuss. What he saw amazed him. Gould saw a male grackle fly into a tennis ball he had purchased in a three-pack at a local Target six months earlier; it was a chew toy for her Great Dane, Dolly Parton. Once on the ground, the grackle erupted into an elaborate dance around the ball, uttering piercing cries. It finished the act by landing on the ball and . . . by rotating. After a few minutes the bird took off. Goul thought it would stay away.

Did not do. Later that day the grackle returned. Just like before, it jumped down, danced around and got busy. The next day, the same thing. And the next day. And the next one. Gould found it amusing at first—after all, no one expects to witness a bird courting a tennis ball—but then he wondered why the grackle had taken such a shine to an inanimate object. He was also worried about the creature’s well-being. “I started to worry about him,” Gould said. He tried removing the tennis ball to see if the grackle would lose interest, but “he lost his mind,” so he put it back. Gould, an expert on human behavior, was perplexed by the bird. He consulted the Internet.

On May 26, he asked Austin’s community on Reddit what they thought of the burlesque bird show that happens every few minutes in his backyard. His message blew up. “We all want to see how this beautiful romance unfolds,” one user said. Another commenter suggested “add googly eyes to the tennis ball. Let’s see what happens next.” The internet community demanded more documentation of the event – ​​photos and videos – for science, of course. Gould delivered. She asked her boyfriend, who has a GoPro, to hide the camera in a nearby bush on Memorial Day so they could get a field seat. The footage was revealing to say the least. “It’s basically been Brazzers in my backyard for the last few weeks,” Gould told an Internet message board. Appropriately named the grackle Baller by fans.

Never a scientist, Gould began looking for an expert to explain the phenomenon. He found one in Joe Poston, a biology professor at Catawba College in North Carolina. He told her that this behavior has been seen in grackles before. “Believe it or not,” she wrote in an email, “a closely related Boat-tailed Grackle has been spotted trying to mate with a tennis ball. And a piece of dirt. And a flower on a magnolia tree! (Three different males were involved.)” She pointed him to a colleague’s work, which has previously studied a behavior known as “redirected mating”. One explanation is that Baller is simply too young to attract his own potential mates – those opportunities may go to older, more dominant men. This may have pushed Baller into Gould’s backyard, where the line between lovebirds and lovebirds lustthe bird is irrevocably crossed.

Gould’s plight opened a floodgate of grackle- and tennis-ball-related content on Reddit. One user sent video depicting an Austin grackle handling a champagne cork in a similar fashion. Another commenter wondered if there is a shortage of female grackles. “Has something happened to turn some of the male grackles into incels?” they wondered. Another user asked for suggestions “Requested Places to Meet Tennis Balls in Austin”. Someone even designed the logo featuring a bird and his balls.

Plus, the spotlight on Baller got support for the grackles that some Texans love to hate. Grackles resent their abundance; their loud, explosive calls; and their well-deserved reputation for leaving their mark on any vehicle that sits in the HEB parking lot for more than half an hour. This magazine’s favorite columnist once described them as “a sport that Texans have nothing nice to say about.”

But you have to hand it to the grackle, a stubborn and clever creature that has found ways to thrive with humans encroaching on its territory. The oldest known grackle lived an impressive 23 years. The species has evolved to eat almost anything, from grain in farmers’ fields to tortilla chips swept up from lunch. Grackles like to go behind lawnmowers to eat an easy meal and pick bugs off the freshly cut grass. Another example of grackle ingenuity: “anting,” a behavior in which the bird visits anthills so that insects crawl on its wings and secrete formic acid, a substance that kills pests living in the bird’s feathers. (No word on whether Baller tried these activities when he’s not swinging his tennis ball.)

Word of Baller and meeting Kong reached Caley Zuzulan, biologist and program manager Travis Audubon Society. “This is actually the first time I’ve ever heard of a grackle being so enamored with an inanimate object,” he said. Zuzula is a self-confessed grackle superfan; he would be delighted if the grackle replaced the northern mockingbird as the official state bird of Texas. He especially likes the grackle’s superior mating dance, which Baller has so tirelessly demonstrated for his beloved tennis ball. “They put their beaks in the air and walk around. Then they blow their wings and make their tails go up in a V shape. They start making this crazy noise and chase the females as they do this,” he said. Zuzula said grackles are generally not monogamous birds — they can have three or four mates at a time. But it seems Baller only has eyes for Kong.

When I reached Gould by phone last week, Baller showed no signs of slowing down. In fact, he was in her backyard when we spoke. “There he is,” he said. “He walks in and checks [Kong] and then jump back up. And then sometimes he plays the whole song and dances. She comes every three to five minutes during the day.” Dolly Parton, the Great Dane, seems to have lost interest in the ball now, as if there is a “force field” around it, Gould said.

Now that Gould has a satisfactory explanation for Baller’s behavior, he has begun to wonder why the saga fascinated people. Perhaps we see in Baller a reflection of ourselves: how our basest desires and uncontrollable impulses can guide us, how we can work so hard to achieve the unattainable. “When people are reminded of the absurdity of their predicament, it pulls you into the present and just makes you realize that this is all ridiculous,” he said. Gould has even started incorporating the story into her therapy sessions. “I’ve started using this as a metaphor, like, ‘You know, you just go back to that tennis ball and nothing changes. So what are you going to do about it? ” Gould said. “They’ve all enjoyed the joke a little bit.”

You can read all you want into this – you can think it to death. But at its core, this is a love story as steadfast and straightforward as anything written by William Shakespeare or sung by Willie Nelson. And that’s the real beauty of Baller and Kong’s story. In an increasingly complex world, things are sometimes simple are what they are. We can all find comfort in that. “It’s just a grackle in love with a tennis ball,” Gould said. “It’s beautiful, quite simple.”