How I made the Tanager mad at me. Yes, I was a baaaad girl.

I was sitting on my back deck on a sunny, warm, breezy Thursday evening enjoying the view of the back yard and the birdies within. I could hear someone singing from the treetops and was having a hard time distinguishing who was who - my brain was a little cloudy. I thought - hey! If I grabbed the laptop I could go to Allaboutbirds.org and take a listen..... then it would be much easier to figure out. So that's what I did.

I played the Indigo Bunting, an Oriole, a Cardinal, a Rose-Breasted Grosbeak, a Robin - then I played the Scarlet Tanager. It sounded really close to what I was hearing in the treetops. The treetops sang back. I played it again, the treetops sang back. I thought - oh! How cool! I played it again, and from out of nowhere there he was, in the tops of my big pines out back. Mrs. Tanager was close behind, hanging in the tops of a large Oak.

Now I think I'm super cool, because I used modern technology to lure in one of the most handsome of feathered kingdom. I play the song again, and he drops down closer trying to determine exactly where that other red bird calling his bluff was.

Then he flew down from the tree and just about popped me in the forehead, zoomed straight back up, over the roof and landed in the birch tree on the side of the driveway where he proceeded to call and call and call trying to find his rival. He then flew back into the large pine, the place where he last knew the call to come from.

He was so inquisitive, insistently calling and wanting to know where that jerk went, he dive-bombed me again and then I realized that my bright red-backed laptop was right there. I placed it in the chair next to me. He flew over the house again and started calling from the birch tree. Now I'm starting to feel bad - it's hard to believe how territorial he became with just a few calls from my laptop. I will admit that I took full advantage and marveled over his beauty and brashness and need to throw 'that guy' out of town. He came back to perch, one more time, in the big pine.

Now I'm feeling guilty for getting the poor Tanager all worked up thinking he needed to defend his property. He wouldn't stop singing and flitting through the branches. I could still hear him in the birch tree for at least 1/2 an hour after I went into the house. He's been here every day since, singing and flitting through the trees - probably making sure that ruffian doesn't come back into his area.

Note to self - only play a bird's call once when you know he's in the area!