High drama this morning, about 30 feet up in our Leyland Cypress trees. Our
gang of about 20 Blue Jays were all screaming and carrying on. We got our
binoculars and could see the Jays and a pair of Brown Thrashers deep in one
of the trees swooping back and forth and striking at what we couldn't see.
This went on for about 10 minutes. The Jays eventually began to move off,
but the Thrashers continued to strike repeatedly at "something" we could
only guess at. They were relentless and finally it became apparent when a
huge black snake came tumbling 30 feet to the ground! It lay there for a few
seconds..dazed. and then slithered off. No tell-tale lumps in the snake's
body, so it obviously didn't get anything. I had no idea that Thrashers were
so powerful that they could dislodge a really large snake, especially from a
Cypress tree with so many dense branches.. But they did it.
Not sure if there was a nest up in there but our Thrashers always build
close to the ground, usually in the azaleas that are along our fence line,
just a few feet off the ground. I rarely even see them fly up high in trees,
so we're not sure why they were fighting that snake so ferociously. Maybe
they were helping the Jays...
Just suprised at the tenacity of these birds...
Lots of peanuts for the Brown Thrashers today!
Happy 4th of July weekend to all..
Lynda Blair
New Kent County
