Also Monday...

Forgot to mention another incident Monday. As I was walking from the 3 story parking structure to my building that morning, I saw a mocking bird hard on the tail of a male Great Tailed Grackle, like something out of a war movie. Don't know what the grackle did, but the mocker was maybe a foot behind the furiously flying grackle and gaining. They were about five feet off the ground and headed right at me. So I stopped to have a look. That bastard grackle came right at me as if he was using me as interference. He flew just to the left of my head and the mocker was on a collision course. I threw up my hands to protect my face just as the mocker gracefully pulled up and looped back to a small tree just in front of me. I turned to find the grackle landing in a tree about 30 yards beyond me. The mocker saw it too and took off after that grackle. Their chase continued. I went inside.

Don't mess with a nesting mocker, man. And they are nesting right now. I took this shot of a mocker nest last year in a small oak tree on the grounds of the Siemens building in North Austin.