It is easy to believe that researchers fully understand the behavior of birds. Such is not the case, however. Last week my daughter, Angela Dupree, watched a mockingbird doing something she had never seen before.
It seems that, as she walked to her car parked in the large parking lot adjacent to her workplace, she noticed a mockingbird placing small sticks atop the left rear tire on the passenger side of her car. When she looked around, she found the bird had apparently done the same thing atop 4-5 cars parked nearby.
The next day the bird did the same thing. In fact, it acted perturbed when she watched it at worked. She also noted small piles of sticks on the ground near the tires on several cars parked nearby. It appeared these sticks had fallen off the tires when the drivers had moved their vehicles the previous afternoon.
When she asked me if I had any idea what was going on, I told her that perhaps the bird was attempting to build nests. I based this interpretation on the fact that mockingbirds sometimes build several nests in an area before selecting the one they use as their nesting site. However, that does not explain why a mockingbird was choosing the tops of tires as potential paces to build nests.
I have done a little research on the subject and found that, while the behavior has been seen before, nobody seems to know exactly what is happening. Some suggest the birds are just marking their territory. Who know!
If you have seen have witnessed this behavior or can explain it, please let me know.
My daughter’s experience demonstrates we have a lot more to learn about the behavior of even common birds such as the northern mockingbird.
