Caught three finches playing king of the mountain on my bird bath at dawn yesterday

Honestly I didn't even know finches did that kind of thing. I was sitting on my porch in Tulsa with my coffee around 6 AM and this one little house finch just plopped right into the bath and started splashing like crazy. Then two more showed up and they started taking turns knocking each other off the rim. Like one would hop up on the edge, the other would flap and bump it off, then the third would slide in and repeat the whole thing. Went on for a solid 8 minutes before a blue jay showed up and chased them all off. Has anyone else seen birds acting like total goofballs in your yard or was this just a one-off weird morning?

3 comments

3 Comments

ray_campbell466d ago

Gotta love how even birds have their own little social hierarchies playing out first thing in the morning. It reminds me of how you see the same thing with people at the gas station or the grocery store - someone's having a good time, then a bigger personality shows up and takes over the whole space. The finches were probably just getting their daily splash in before the big boss arrived and decided it was his turn. Kinda makes you wonder if the blue jay knows he's the jerk or if he just thinks he's entitled to the whole bird bath.

elizabeths516d ago

Put a big rock in the middle of the bath so the little ones can hide behind it.

lucasschmidt6d ago

Wait, a blue jay just showed up and ruined the whole thing? Man, that's rough. I bet those little finches were having the time of their lives before that bully came along. I've never seen finches playing king of the mountain either, that sounds hilarious. My yard mostly gets doves that just sit around looking confused, so your story is way better than anything I've got. Did the blue jay actually stick around to take a bath or was it just there to be a jerk?