“Back off, Red, this sunflower platform is my throne!” Jay-Z shrieked, his blue crest snapping up like a switchblade as he dived from the oak. Cardi didn’t flinch, digging his claws into the cedar and puffing his chest until he looked like a glowing ember. “You’re all squawk and no bite, Jay,” Cardi hissed, his black mask narrowing in the morning light. The air crackled with the frantic beat of wings as the two titans spiraled into a vertical dogfight, a blur of sapphire and crimson where a single misplaced strike could mean a lost feather or a fractured ego.
Zip. A tiny gray blur cut through the center of the battlefield. Chick didn’t even slow down, his rapid-fire chick-a-dee-dee-dee sounding suspiciously like a giggle. While the giants were busy screaming at the sky, the tiny ninja jammed a mammoth seed into his beak, flipped upside down just for the thrill of it, and vanished into the hemlocks. High above, Goldie watched the “barbarians” from the safety of his thistle sock, taking a snobbish sip of water. “Why fight for the floor,” he muttered to his yellow posse, “when you can dine in the sky?”
The competitive tension reached a fever pitch until a sudden, sharp shadow stretched across the grass. “SHADOW!” Jay-Z screamed, his ego instantly replaced by the primal urge to survive. The “Cooper’s Hawk” alarm sent the entire backyard into a synchronized, high-speed retreat. In a heartbeat, the colorful battlefield was silent, leaving only swaying feeders and empty shells. The rivalry would resume in exactly three minutes, once the adrenaline faded and the hunger returned to the Maine woods.
The Secret Lives of Backyard Birds Video:
A PDF of the birds of Southern Maine: