bird battles

I gawked when she told me, in a most matter-of-fact fashion, the reason she hates the Starlings so. Since I arrived, Oma has told me how mad she is each time they poop on the car. I thought it was an overreaction, but now I understand and I too am mad at the Starlings. The truth is that not only do they poop on cars. They kill the Robins, so they can steal their nests! Oma used to watch for the same pairs of male and female Robins she would have each year. She had eight pairs. Now there are only two, and she has watched the males, grieving for their departed females. So Oma works in her garden and talks back at the Starlings when they chatter angrily each time someone is near a nest. In fact, she has had them flit so close that they nabbed her bum as she bent over the plants. I tried it out for myself this afternoon, waving my bum in the air, just daring them to come and attack as I tried to follow the volume of the chattering to bother them closer to wherever their nests may be. But I didn’t get to experience the bum-whacking . . . not yet, anyway :-) I did snap this shot of the mid-squawking Starling, which also gives you a pretty good glimpse of one of Oma’s prize Apricot trees.
Ok, back to watching Oma now. She’s trying to prove to me that they will do it . . .