Drama in the Back Yard

It was murder by sharp beak in the back yard.

Yep. Your local amateur backyard wildlife observer is at it again. That means Sally’s sitting on the back porch with a cup of coffee watching wildlife.

The episode reminded me of a game of Clue. The alert that something was up was the loud squawking of numerous birds. Having learned that lots of squawking means something’s afoot (to quote Sherlock Holmes – Hey, I love a good mystery), I gazed into the distance, searching for the source of the noise. It soon appeared. It wasn’t a-foot. It was a-wing!

Out of the sky dived a large black crow, followed closely by a gang of other birds. And they were all squawking loudly. The reason was that crow held a struggling bird in its beak. Crow landed in the middle of the yard, but it wasn’t safe.

The following gang was composed of very angry birds, robins and purple martins. The robins landed in a circle around the crow and attempted a lackluster advance upon the killer crow, but it was too big and intimidating for them. They just had to stand and watch. The martins tried a few dive bombs, and actually struck twice. But that crow was a tough old bird. It just bobbed and ducked, killed that captured bird, and ate it.

I even thought of a frontal attack myself, but knew that old crow would just fly off with its dinner. I was much too late. Such is the circle of life, it may be said.

On the other hand, a couple weeks ago we heard another loud chorus of bird tweets. Darling Daughter and I were once again on the back porch. “What is that noise?” we wondered aloud.

Into my small city of bird feeders flew a whole flock of Carolina chickadees. The chickadees hang out at my bird feeders a lot, but only one by one. Never by the flock. And this was a flock. A loud flock.

An hour of observation by us revealed Mom and Dad Chickadee had brought their four newly-fledged babes to my feeders to learn how to eat on their own. We must report that, although baby chickadees are darling, they don’t seem terribly smart. They would simply stand on a tree limb while poor mom and dad gathered seed from the feeders, then flew the six inches to stuff bird seed in the babes’ mouths. This went on for an hour, and was observed to occur at least two or three times a day.

And after hearing all the chickadee hubbub, I decided these weren’t baby birds. They were teenage birds. They were loud and obnoxious. Sorry teen friends.

It was observed that one of these chickadee children was obese. I mean really chubby. At least twice the size of mom and dad. I named him Obee. Apparently chickadee parents have favorites.

But teen chickadees are learning their lessons. They still fly around together. They even come to the bird feeders to eat on their own. Just this week they were seen all gathered together in one bird feeder, feasting on their own without the help of mom and dad. What a relief it must be to those chickadee parents.

I wonder how long it will take the youngsters to gather the courage to leave their little family nesting group and fly away to start their own families. And will they bring them home to show off to mom and dad, and to teach the lesson of the bird feeders?

And we report that Obee is still the heftiest chick on the block. Hope no lingering crow has noticed.

Such is the circle of life. Who knew that a back yard could be so full of drama, death, and life?