Youse gotta protect da family.

An interesting – ahem – “alliance” has been forged between the blue jays and the grackles that have been enjoying the riches provided by my Mother’s Day birdfeeder.

These two bully species scare off a lot of other smaller, cuter birds. I’m not a fan of either one. But we started noticing evidence of some kind of mutual protection racket in the last few days.

Blue jays on the bench, grackles on the ground where seed got spilled. Evidence of grudging respect.

When the grackles are perched on the feeder, there are often blue jays sitting nearby, waiting carefully for their turn. When the bluejays are on the feeder, the grackles sit quietly to the side and wait. Interesting…

And then this morning, there was a hit.

The cat who lives across the street and is SO loved by its owner that it’s allowed to cross our fairly busy street at will and roam the neighborhood freely…and who regards our back yard as its own private play ground and litter box…

…cornered a juvenile blue jay. We speculated that the baby bird left the nest too early. It had no tail feathers and clearly couldn’t fly.

The nasty cat got hold of the baby bird. But before the cat could carry the bird off, it was dive-bombed by no fewer than two blue jays and FIVE grackles, all attacking its head.

Youse gotta protect da family. Don’t mess with the birds.