Date: Wed, 2 May 2001 16:45:24 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Sherry Peruzzi Subject: Re: Spring time bird behavior MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Fred Shaffer wrote: > 3. While watching the many swallows over Schoolhouse Pond at lunch > one day, I and a friend saw two Barn Swallows collide with each other > while zipping over the water. Both were uninjured. One day last year I was watching two great blue herons feeding about 30 feet apart at the shallow end of Wilde Lake in Columbia. One took off in the direction of its home on Lake Kittamaqundi. Its flight path was directly over the other heron -- who took off a moment later, crashing right into the first one about 5 feet over the lake. There was quite an argument over it, with the herons angrily yelling at each other what must have been heron-talk for "Why don't you look where you're going!" The funniest bird behavior I ever saw, though, took place a few years ago as my husband and I were driving through an apartment complex off Georgia Avenue in Montgomery County. We saw a house sparrow fly down to get what it assumed was a string or a dead weed lying loosely on the ground at the edge of a wooded area, thinking it would make great nesting material. It picked up the loose end of the weed and began to fly off with it -- only to be brought up short because the other end was still firmly attached to the ground! But this was one determined sparrow! It grabbed hold of the weed, backed off, and pulled sharply -- yank, yank, yank, yank, yank! No luck -- the weed was still attached. It tried again -- yank, yank, yank, yank! It just couldn't pull the weed loose, but it had decided it wanted *that* weed, and wouldn't give up. We pulled the car over and watched it as it repeatedly tried everything it could think of to get this particular weed for its nest. It tugged and tugged. It tried flying away with it. It yanked at it some more. Over and over and over. It was hilarious! Like all of us I'm no house sparrow fan, but this particular little bird was so determined I wanted to just pull the weed for it and say here, enjoy ... but I didn't want to spoil the show! After 10 solid minutes of yanking on the weed the sparrow finally gave up and flew away, and then I did go over and pull the weed out, and left it lying loose on the ground just in case the sparrow came back later to try again. Sherry Peruzzi Howard County bookworms@home.com ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================