A pair of Mocking Birds are using guerrilla warfare to occupy my front and

[1monster]

side yards.



Okay, at first it was kind of cute. These two pretty little birds screeching at me and mine every time we walked out the door.

But as time goes on, the tactics are getting more aggressive.

Five of my seven cats (who by the way lived here for years before this pair decided it was their territory) like to lie in the grass in the sun and under bushes are being constantly harassed. The birds efforts are counter productive, in my opinion. My cats are well fed and don't usually pay birds much attention. They prefer to play with rodents when the urge to hunt strikes them. But with the antagonistic little monsters scolding and dive bombing the cats every time they walk out the door, making life miserable for them, the cats are no longer ignoring them.

If they do manage to take one of them down (something I seriously doubt), I'm of the mind that this pair has definitely begged for it.

It's not like this is a new home which invaded their territory. We've owned this house for thirty years.

And it isn't like there is no uninhabited space around here. There three empty lots directly behind my house and about ten to fifteen unimproved lots across the road from my house.

Today, that belligerent pair started dive bombing me!

This is WAR!

[XemaSab]

1. They probably have a nest

Keep your f***ing cats indoors until they are finished breeding (which will take about a month).

[1monster]

2. If they have a nest, then they are not spending any time in it. They are

always in our faces.

And I have looked for a nest.

My cats were here first. And so was I. :P

on edit: My cats were not paying any attention to the birds until they started dive bombing. And even now, they are totally unnerved by them. The cats are hiding where ever they can to stay out of the way of the birds.

My "f***ing" cats didn't do anything to deserve what they are getting.

[UTUSN]

3. It will pass. They have babies. This happens at my place 2x per Spring/summer

It only lasts a couple or three weeks. With all the variety of calls they can produce, there is that ONE scolding, threatening one that is THE SAME. The problem is knowing where they have the nest. Their aggression and scolding intensifies, obviously, the closer you are to the nest.

The most recent time was the worst. One of the birds not only buzzed me, it nicked at me on the side and the arm, from behind. Usually, it's only my poor mini-daschund that has to run. Yep, it is certainly CHEENE-like of them to just TAKE OVER. The rest of the time they're all right. Although, there are times when they sing NON-STOP, and like, 3 A.M.

[1monster]

4. Then I should only have two or so more weeks of this? How the

heck do the babies survive if there's no one tending the nest?

[UTUSN]

6. Oh, they're there more than it looks like.

If you've only been putting up with it for a week, yip, 1-2 wks more. What's odd is: They haven't been there before? Mine (different ones, of course) have been here for years. I had not heard of their showing up somewhere without there having been any before.

[1monster]

7. They've been in the neighborhood, but never close to our yard and

NEVER in our yard before.

I was surprised that they chose a yard that always has cats in it.

[TZ]

5. Mockingbirds are extremely territorial and aggressive

both in summer and in fall. I studied them when I went to school. They are very aggressive-I had them stare me in the eye and then fly at my head. They probably do have a nest somewhere. I always knew when the mockingbirds were nesting at school because they would start screeching when anything like a crow or jay would fly by. They will even attack hawks! Do you have a berry tree of some sort (like holly berries) nearby? They love berry trees.

[1monster]

8. Yeah, there is a very small berry tree growing right up to a pine tree surrounded

by pampas grass (I hate pampas grass. This bunch is the last surviving in my yard. I've taken the rest out ... needed blood transfusions after ever bunch too! :D) I'm not sure what kind of tree it is, but one of the mockingbirds did have a berry from that tree in its beak this morning.

So it was probably the mocking birds that ate all my blackberries?

[TZ]

13. Yep. And thats why they are in your yard..

That berry tree is their food station and they are defending THAT from other critters as well (and yes you are a "critter" to the mockingbird)

[patricia92243]

9. I had a cat that absolutely LOVED to sit under a tree and listen to the birds fuss. She would sit t

there with this real smug - but at the same time innocent look on her face. Like she was saying "Who me? I'm upseting the birds? Who would have guessed."

She lived to a ripe old age. I miss the old girl. :)

[femmocrat]

10. Here is what we did....

We kept a "super-soaker" water gun by each door and fought back! We couldn't even get out the front door without getting dive-bombed, so we had to go out fully "armed". One of those birds actually swooped down and pecked the cat on the bum! They are nasty creatures.

[Neshanic]

11. It could be worse. See below.

"Arizona mockingbirds are picking up and repeating some cell phone ring tones, said Bob Witzeman, conservation chairman for the Maricopa Audubon Society. You can thank the avian species' ability to mimic, combined with their exposure to phone-infested public places, he said."

They are singing their little heads off now at 10:30 at night, and at 4am when I walk the dog.

One sauntered up behind my dog laying on the grass at the park, while I watched, and was very carefull about being seen by him and got right up to his butt and pecked him. It was hysterical.

[Joe Fields]

12. Now THAT'S what I call a conspiracy theory.