Mobbing

Our family was sitting around the campfire at a cottage in Irons, Michigan, overlooking Maple Lake. It was early evening, not dark yet, when our conversations were interrupted by birds making a fuss high in the tree branches over our heads.

I was the first to notice it and I looked up at them three or four times before I remarked on it to the others. There were a lot of small birds squawking and flying back and forth in an alarmed matter.

We got up from our chairs and walked around trying to figure out what was happening and it didn’t take long to see the problem. A large spotted barred owl was perched on a branch high up in an oak tree.

About twenty birds were chirping madly and flying quickly back and forth past him. From down on the ground I could see that at least some of the birds were robins, but they were to far away for me to see if all of them were.

Then we saw something strange. A few of the birds, as they flew by, would dip low enough to strike the owl. This happened over and over again; we could see the feathers ruffle up with each hit, but the owl remained unperturbed. He did not make a sound. Occasionally he would fly to a different branch, but never very far away. He was silent and patient.

Later, when I asked a friend of mine (an avid birder) about it, she said it was something called “mobbing” and was often done to birds of prey by smaller birds, even though, as in this case, the owl was no danger to them or their territory.

Eventually we grew tired of watching, returned to our seats and broke out the som’ more supplies. As it got darker the frantic chirping gradually stopped as the torturers went to roost. As we sat around the fire, quiet and tired from a full day, we listened to the frogs croaking on the lake.

And from somewhere in the tall trees that surrounded us, we heard the owl call out.

Denise Kalin Tackett
July 10, 2010 – journal entry