Continuing the “Wildlife Adventures in Suburbia” theme from the last post…

As I was driving up to my house Sunday evening, I noticed about a half-dozen or so little Sparrow-looking birds pecking at the sidewalk at the end of my driveway. I thought “that’s a little odd, I wonder what they’re eating?”. As I was gathering up my stuff out of the car, I saw that another ten or so were perched on the fence around my front yard. Curiouser and curiouser…

I went around to the back of the Jeep, got my groceries, and turned towards the house, only to see that there were dozens and dozens of these birds perched on my fence and the gutters of the house, and just hopping around on the roof. at this point, I’m starting to get a bit freaked out. I’ve seen small groups of birds around the house before, but nothing like this.

Just as the “I feel like I’m in a Hitchcock movie” vibe really started to take hold, one of my neighbors drove by in a rather loud Ford Bronco. Apparently the birds didn’t like either the sound or the look of the thing, so they all took off at once – from the street, off my fence and roof, and from the neighbor’s yard, where I hadn’t noticed that they were also congregating.

In total, probably a hundred of these tiny little birds took off from the ground, coalesced into a swirling cloud, and headed out to Santa Clara, presumably on a mission to freak someone else out.