[TN-Bird] Careful whatcha wish for

I miss my bluebirds.  They don't come around anymore.

Ever since we moved out to the country, I've thought that it would be really 
cool to have a mockingbird in the yard.  They'd come through the woods every 
now and again, mainly in the winter for a quick drink of water and maybe a 
berry off the small burning bush we had planted.  They wouldn't stick around 
but would head pack to their home turf at the end of the driveway.  There's a 
wild 'hedge' full of sumac, some kind of round black berry, honeysuckle, black 
cherry, hickory.  This is where they've been for the past two years.  They 
weren't there when we first bought the property a couple of years ago.  Then 
they moved in from down the street.  I saw my first juvenile N. Mockingbird at 
this hedge.  

I had always wanted one to sing here on a warm summer night, but they never 
did.  Well, that's fine because I had begun to develop a fancy to the wonderful 
woodpeckers and chicks and nuts and the titmouse.  But, most of all for the 
Eastern Bluebird.  

The blues took a liking to the peanut butter suet stuff a lot in the winter and 
have been coming here regular-like since 2000.  They'd appreciate it when we'd 
rake the leaves to expose critters for them to eat.  They have nested here and 
raised their young here.  They hang out together and feed together.  Everybody 
seemed to get along.  It was a peaceable kingdom.

Things changed recently.  This winter a mockingbird did show up.and stayed.  It 
discovered the peanut butter suet and now it has completely and totally taken 
over how things 'operate' at the feeders.  It perches on top of the suet cage 
and lets no one else feed.  Or it'll perch on a branch close by and wait to 
swoop in on an unsuspecting bluebird at the suet cage.  Now the group of blues 
won't come up here to feed.  Even by having two suet feeders hasn't helped for 
it has taken over both of them.  No one is safe, not the Red-bellied nor the 
Downy.  The mocker's gone so far as to fly at Morning Doves feeding on the 
ground and scare them away.

So, things have been quite at the feeders lately.  One Northern Mockingbird.  

Anna Varney
Near flood stage in.
Summertown, TN
    

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