Outdoors -- Four and-twenty? Hah!

So I was going out to spray water on some squirrels to keep them away from the bird food and WOW!

The oak trees on the block north of my house, which tower over everything, were packed with blackbirds all chatting at the top of their lungs.  Dozens.  Scores.  Maybe hundreds.

I no sooner got outside than they launched in a mass, flying south, and perched in the oaks of my neighbor across the street to the south, still talking.  I came in to get my laptop, thinking I might catch an image and some audio on my webcam.  By the time I went back out, they were gone.

I know they weren't crows because crows just croak, and they were smaller, and besides most of the crows have migrated about 20 miles west to a city with lights that keep the owls off.  Not that we don't have streetlights here, but the thick trees house plenty of owls, also hawks.

But the blackbirds will be back in spring to eat bugs and raise their chicks -- and chase the crows which are three times larger but are ten times more cowardly.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved