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Maybe they sing for other people
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You are here: Home :: What We Think :: Maybe they sing for other people
Maybe they sing for other people
  Depictions of springtime in paintings, novels, even cartoons —especially cartoons— always include little birds, sweetly singing, flitting about the trees, helping you tie the sash of your gown … It’s all a big, fat lie. Our yard is blessed by many birds and I’m telling you, it’s loud and rowdy out there.  Anyone with children can imagine the pressure on a bird to fulfill its biological imperative: There’s a desperate struggle to find a good spot, make a nest, breed, feed and nurture the next generation. There’s fierce competition from all the other birds for space, nesting material and food. There are predators waiting to take advantage of the smallest misstep. The stress turns them into the worst neighbors—intolerant, shrieking, sometimes violent. The mockingbirds lead the charge, of course. You see them stationed on the corners of every roof, on the mailboxes, along utility lines, near the nests they’ve made, watching for the slightest sign of danger. They are relentless, and formidable.  Our mockingbirds have taken possession of the kumquat tree in our front yard. It’s exceptionally heavy with fruit this year, and I’m in the habit of pulling some and eating it whenever I pass. Each transgression is punished immediately by the mockingbird who happens to have drawn kumquat duty that day—they zoom, shrieking and flapping, directly at my head. I’ve gotten used to it, but you should see the poor, unsuspecting children who stop on their way home from school and don’t expect to be attacked by screaming harpies.  The mockingbirds have never made contact with me. The cats aren’t so lucky. The kamikaze birds attack them the minute they come into sight, pecking viciously at their butts until they run under something. The favored way for the cats to move about now is by slinking from cover to cover, casting anxious looks at the sky as they go. A cardinal couple frequents our yard, although I think their nest is elsewhere. I see them hunting through the berry vines out back most mornings. One recent morning the male was in the kumquat tree having a snack. He made the most beautiful picture, vivid red among all the green foliage and golden fruit, and seemed unperturbed by my presence. I was heading in to fetch Micheal and his camera when the mockingbird discovered the poacher, and all hell broke loose.  The blue jays like the magnolia tree, but this is evidently mockingbird territory as well—I’m not sure there is anything in the city that isn’t mockingbird territory right now. Blue jays are not easily intimidated, and we’re as likely to be wakened by hideous screaming and thrashing from the magnolia, as by birdsong.  There’s a crow couple in our neighborhood this year. I don’t where they’re nesting, but they come into the back yard to feed, and can be heard and seen in the area most of the day. They’re startlingly large birds up close, but they don’t scare the mockingbirds, who have taken a hard-nosed, no-crow stance. I see one or both crows every morning when I walk, and they’re never alone. They always have two or three mockingbirds right on their tails, screaming and flying around and at them. It’s like watching WWII fighter pilots engage in “dogfights” in movies. The crows don’t seem much concerned with their outriders, and I wonder what would happen if one or both crows one day turned to fight. I can only guess the mockingbirds, at half their opponents’ size, would go down fighting. And screaming.  With all the contention among our bird population these days, I was enchanted to find two or more families of tiny, tiny birds had moved into the tops of our big backyard yucca. They speak to one another in small, excited voices, beginning with a whistle and ending with “dee-dee-dee-dee.” They’re not much bigger than my thumb, and I greeted them warmly, as bird guests who wouldn’t attack me, or fight with me later over who gets the blackberries and mulberries. With the help of binoculars and www.whatbird.com, I identified them as Carolina chickadees who, while nesting, “will hiss and strike intruders, similar to how a snake would act.” It’s a jungle out there, people.   |
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