The Birds?

There are a few movies I have seen in my life that still affect me adversely. One is the Alfred Hitchcock movie, "The Birds". It was about one month past my 8th Birthday and the movie was on television for the first time, so I ended up watching it with my older sister. Needless to say it scared the crap out of me, and I have hated birds ever-sense . At least all "flying" birds. Everyone would say, "You know they really don't attack people". Well, tell that to my Son who walked out on our porch when he was a teenager and had a bird fly right into the side of his head, lol.

When we moved to Texas a few years ago I noticed that in the months of September through November there seemed to be swarms of large black birds called Grackles migrating south. These birds are scary, loud, and they congregate in large numbers. On nights during this time when I would drive through one particular intersection just before dusk the grackles and various black birds would be everywhere. They were lined up on the power lines, traffic light posts, street lights, trees, grass, in the parking lots, and on all the buildings. There were thousands of them.

Birds starting to gather at the corner of McDermott and I75.

The same corner as the picture above and they are gathering on the buildings.

One early evening my daughter and I went to a Target store near that particular intersection and when we walked out to go to the car the parking lot was full of grackles. They were on the cement, in the grass in the medians, in the trees and on the building. They were everywhere and I was scared to go to my car. We ended up running and yelling to scare them away. It looked like a scene from the movie.

A few blocks down the road and they are starting to gather on this corner.

I went to pick up my car up from a Car Dealer's service garage in October of last year. When my husband dropped me off, and I was walking towards the garage area that was lined with trees, I heard the birds. They were filling the trees and so very loud. There was an older couple standing just inside the garage looking like they were afraid to come out. I ran into the garage and asked them if the birds had been there very long? They said, "No, and that it reminded them of the movie "The Birds". I agreed.

In this video at the car dealer, if you look close, you can see the trees are full of Grackles.

The grackles from the north, and several other types of black bird's migration goes on for several months in the fall when they travel south. Then it starts back up again in April and May when they head back north. For these months we get to see thousands upon thousands of these scary loud poop factories congregate all over the Dallas area until they fly south. I am not sure how far south they migrate, but it does not seem to be too much farther than southern Texas, or just into Mexico. I am sure many just decide to stay here and bother us for the winter.

We were just driving down the service road and they were all along the road side.

The best quotes from the movie "The Birds" was from Annie Hayworth when she says, "Don't they ever stop migrating?" But, I side with the Traveling Salesman in the diner that says, "Gulls are scavengers, anyway.  Most birds are. Get yourselves guns and wipe them off the face of the earth." He must have been a Texan!