A Mobbing

I usually walk through our front yard rather quickly when I take the dogs out in the morning, just barely registering the more flashy or noisy birds like Gila Woodpeckers, doves, quail and ravens and the occasional hawk or kestrel. Yesterday I stayed around longer to work on my firing 'pit'. I have to clean out the ashes to have good airflow the next time, and clay pieces are filling up my drying cabinet. while scratching around, I heard more birds than usual, and mostly alarm calls. Small birds kept flying in. Whole families of house finches, black-throated sparrows, verdins, noisy cactus wrens, even our Costa's Hummer congregated in a nearby Ironwood tree, more arriving by the minute. I watched at least 30 birds arrive, and that was after a while of just being aware of them subconsciously.

Well, the reason was no owl or Cooper's hawk. Our Roadrunner was basking (it was still rather cool) and then preening in a blooming ironwood tree nearby. I see him often walking along when I go, but sitting exposed like that he became a much hated target. Interestingly, no larger birds joined in. When the local screech owl gets mobbed at, woodpeckers, thrashers and even quail usually take the lead. I thought birds primarily just follow the mobbing-mood of other birds. Yesterday it seemed that only birds that where actually on the prey-list took action.