Dogwood berries

There are three dogwood trees right by our house. Each fall a group of mockingbirds appear to dispute 'ownership' of this patch of food. The 'winning' mocker guards against all comers, except for the small birds. The chickadees and titmice are allowed to visit the feeders nearby and seek shelter in the dogwoods unharmed. Then a week arrives when the berries are either 'just so' or roaming bird hordes moving through this neighborhood spot the trees. A week of furious activity results as a mocker tries to chase off every bird from a large flock.

In past years the dogwood berry season is when the starling flocks visited. This year I've seen a flock across the lake but the birds have not come here. Last year a robin flock came and stripped the trees over a couple of days. The mocker tried to defend. The robin flock flew in low from nearby woods. This meant some of the birds went into the banding nets. I was looking forward to a repeat this year so that I could improve my knowledge of age and sex identification with robins.

So who is stripping the trees this weekend? Rusty blackbirds are eating the berries and there is no mocker defending. We've not seen one for several weeks. The Rusty Blackbirds fly high and dive down to the trees. Even though I had nets up near the bird feeders and dogwoods no blackbird came close to them. When startled, the birds flew straight up and away.

Surprisingly the Rusty Blackbirds ignored me most of the time. The banding station is between two of the dogwoods. The birds were even feeding on the ground near me.