Things have been peaceful in my yard lately. I've had house finches, gold finches, blue jays, downy woodpeckers, chickadees, nuthatches, mourning doves, cowbirds, orioles, hummingbirds, and blue jays at the feeders. I set Migwe, my canary, outside in his cage yesterday for the first time this year. He enjoys sitting on the deck and hanging out with the gold finches. But tonight when I went to take the garbage and recycling cans out to the street, three male bluebirds were having a fight. I stood and watched for about ten minutes. I wheeled my cans out to the street and when I came back they were still going at it. I'm not talking about a slight disagreement, these three were chasing each other recklessly. Sometimes they would beat each other with their wings while in the air so that they both fell to the ground where they continued to duke it out in the long grass. As they fought on the ground I walked closer. They didn't even pay attention to me as I stood just a few feet away. One bluebird had the other one pinned on his back with his beak on the pinned bird's neck. From the look of them, I think two of the bluebirds were juveniles and one was an adult. All were male. The adult wasn't any more or less aggressive than the younger ones. All three kept fighting. They would flutter at each other aggressively. One would fly a short distance and land on a branch or a tree trunk or even the rope to my swing. The other two would come diving after it. Two of them fought in the air above the garage and they both fell to the roof of the garage. They fought on the roof for a few minutes before flying away. "Why can't we all just get along?" I asked. All this commotion had to be taking a toll on bird feathers and bird muscles. Somebody was going to get hurt. As I stood between the two oak trees, the birds chased each other so carelessly they almost struck me. What could be the benefit of putting out all this energy? The strongest one gets the bluebird house for the second clutch of the year?
1 comment:
well nice article and impressive voice that you have all the gorgeous birds in your garden, but dude when birds have fight each other leave it to them cause they fight then in the end the sit together, so common observation.
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