The birds around my house have gone daffy. I have never seen anything like this. Dozens of birds surrounded my house throughout the day and into the evening yesterday. We are talking about bluebirds, sparrows, and LBJs (little brown jobs) all hanging out together. Not just hanging out together, but weirding out together.
The birds bounded all over in
the grass. They bounced up onto the
fence and bounced along the rails. Almost
continuously, one bird or another swooped from pine tree to pine tree along the
incline behind my house. They hovered in
the air, dropped here, ascended there. On two occasions an LBJ
flew up and flared for a moment above my head before flitting away.
Quite often, pairs of birds twirled
around each other in midair or engaged in chase and break runs.
The strangest behavior, though,
was the brief gathering of different species into groups of a half dozen or so
as they swept off into the juniper and sage or looped into the pines.
Clearly, all of the birds were
feeding on an abundance of hoppers and other insects. But an element of something else seemed at work. Maybe some birds were giddy with anticipation
of their coming migrations to the south.
Maybe the newbies simply wanted to play.
Either way, both Desiree and I stood watching the birds in wonder as our
own activities drew us outdoors.
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