Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Attack of the blackbirds

Every once in a while, we are completely overcome by blackbirds. They swoop in, hang out for a little while, make a lot of noise, and then swoop back out again.

They love to hang out with the cows. The cows don’t seem to mind.

birds in pasture
All of a sudden, for no particular reason, they’ll all take to the sky, all at once. It’s pretty dramatic to be right in the middle.

bye bye birdies
Then they’ll settle in the tops of the trees, or on the roof of our buildings. It makes me feel like I’m in a Hitchcock movie. Unsettling.

tree birdsThis was taken on a different day, but you can see how the flock looks in mid-flight in the distance. That’s not smoke, and it’s not a cloud of locusts. It’s a giant flock of blackbirds flying in formation. Actually, they work together a lot like a school of fish.

blackbird formationOur dog Kodi loves to bark at the birds, but they don’t seem to care.

8 comments:

  1. I always thought they were migrating when they fly that way. With the weather we have had they probably didn't go too far south now they are going back north. It is weird to see and hear.

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  2. Kind of makes you feel like you are in the middle of a Hitchcock movie!  ACK!

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  3. There seem to be more blackbirds than normal this winter...at least I think so.

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  4. I think so, too. It seems like they are everywhere!

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  5. Nothing like driving home and having them fly up on both sides of the road around the truck! Scary!

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  6. when the birds swoop back and forth in flocks and it almost looks as if they're dancing, I believe it's called murmuring or something like that. 

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  7. Murmuring... I like that! I guess I need to look into bird behavior a little bit more.

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  8. They have certainly been around a lot this year. I'm not sure if it's a migrating pattern or what is going on. Either way, they are crazy noisy!

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