I had been unable to take any walks for these past few weeks due to major back problems, so I delighted in setting out this morning for a wee jaunt.  Still sore and still in pain, I knew to keep the distance short, the walk steady and the footing sure.

On my way back home after but a few hours, I noticed two northern mockingbirds (Mimus polyglottos) at the water’s edge giving chase to any bird that approached.

I know mockingbirds are aggressive and chase predators and threats, but these two attacked everything.  Grackles, sparrows, fly catchers, black birds…  Nothing was safe.

Watching them closely and wondering to myself why they were in such a frantic state, I approached slowly with my eyes on their every move.

I stopped next to a sapling where they had been active and scanned the nearby trees.

Nothing.

Then the rough, gravelly scream of an attacking mockingbird pierced the air around me.  The sound was approaching my location.

Smack!

Right in the side of the head.  The mockingbird bounced off my baseball cap and flitted effortlessly into the sky, made a clean arc in front of me, landed in a tree opposite my location and stared at me relentlessly, its war cry filling the air as a warning.

Only in watching the marauder did I happen to look up.  Up into the branches of the sapling by my side.

No more than an arm’s length away in the top branch was the reason for all this drama: a fledgling mockingbird.

Its tail still undeveloped and blunt, almost as though cut off, it looked quite healthy and quite alarmed.

No wonder the parents had no tolerance for interlopers.

Careful not to frighten it or its mother and father, I walked away slowly while snickering at how clueless I had been.  Given the season, I should have known why the two adults were up in arms.

I also should have known not to stand in the middle of a parental battlefield like a dimwit.

I got what I deserved.  And I laughed about it the whole way home.