I haven’t watched the movies or played the video games Angry Birds, but I know that both movies and games have been very popular. I have never really thought about birds getting angry until yesterday when Dennis and I witnessed it.
We own parakeets and their cage is in our kitchen. As we sit at the kitchen table we often watch our parakeets and talk about them while we eat. We originally bought 2 birds - Skipper and Tweety, but we ended up buying 2 more birds. We did not know until much later that Skipper & Tweety were male and female and the additional 2 birds were females - Shy and Bobber.
Skipper & Tweety bonded and the 2 additional females have always picked on Tweety because they wanted Skipper to be their man. (Smile) About a year ago one of the females, Bobber, was found dead at the bottom of the cage. There were no mysterious or suspicious signs on her body. We really didn’t know how old she was when we purchased her, so we thought that she may have died of old age.
But yesterday, Dennis and I really began to wonder if Bobber had actually been murdered. We considered calling Dateline to assist us in getting to the bottom of things. (Smile). The reason we wondered was because as we were eating our lunch after church we heard a great commotion in the birdcage! I would have normally called it a ‘cat fight’, but it was actually 2 female birds fighting!
Tweety and Shy were going at it and feathers were flying everywhere! And it didn’t stop at a few blows either. No matter where Shy went in the cage, Tweety followed in swift pursuit. Around and around, up and down the stairs and back again they went!
The past few months Shy has abused and bullied Tweety and would not leave her alone. Even when Tweety got in the coconut to get away for a nap, Shy would peck her on the head from a hole that was in the coconut! So yesterday Tweety said, “enough is enough” and tore into Shy. Today has now been round two of their fights. And I have been wondering if someone would end up dead again.
So this bird activity gave me pause and the term “Angry Birds” came to my mind. And I asked Google - “Do birds get angry?”
The answer came back, yes they do! Especially if a bird's nest is threatened by a predator. Some have mentioned to me that Mockingbirds have attacked them and they didn’t know why…it’s because you unknowingly have gotten too near their nest! You are the predator. This behavior is known as “swooping.” The crows who have been next door have aggressively defended their nest from a nosy cat getting too close to their nest.
Hummingbirds fly through the air fighting other hummingbirds like WW2 bomber pilots to defend their food source. I have never seen them draw blood, but they do battle it out until one of them leaves. We also witnessed the past few weeks the Grosbeaks getting snappy with our Cardinals because they were hungry.
Birds also fight to prove dominance over other birds…sort of a pecking order of those in charge of a territory. Young birds in the nest often get aggressive when the parent bird comes back with food. They want to ensure that they survive so they reach further, beg harder, chirp louder and push their siblings away.
On YouTube there is a video that has been watched 3.7M times of a Pigeon battling with two black Crows over their area that they live in. The Pigeon fights to the death of the crow.
So as with the human and animal world, sometimes in the bird kingdom they must stand up for themselves. As I “Look at the birds of the air…” Matthew 6:26, I have found out more that I did not know about the life of birds in our world.
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