SUMMER BIRDS IN LANDSCAPED PARKING LOTS
On July 1, this past, I was waiting in my pick-up truck on a blacktop parking lot in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania for my wife. While there, I noticed a northern mockingbird on the peak of the roof on a nearby, two-story building, surrounded by the parking lot and little islands of planted grass, shrubbery and trees. Suddenly, the mockingbird took flight and attacked a crow that was flying by. The crow landed on the same building's roof, and the mocker, and its mate, continued to viciously dive-bomb it repeatedly until the crow finally flew away. The mockers probably were protecting their young in a twig and grass nursery somewhere in a row of planted bushes at the base of the building. Crows do consume eggs and young from the cradles of small birds, when they can find those foods and if they are not chased away by the parent birds. After that exciting encounter between a crow and a pair of...