20 May 2025
What is the easiest way to find an owl? Listen for angry birds.
Songbirds always view owls as dangerous but during the nesting season they loudly mob owls to drive them away from their nests and fledglings. This attracts more birds to join the chase. What a ruckus! Here are some examples.
In this video blue jays mob a mother screech-owl who is taking a break near her nestbox in Florida. She isn’t going to leave the area so the mobbing isn’t going to work. Notice her reaction!
Her behavior is notable because:
Screech Owl uses newly documented scary daytime defensive posture against annoying Blue Jays and Mockingbirds consist of wide eyed blinking and open mouth snapping to look more intimidating.
— video description from MyBackyardBirding on YouTube
American crows bravely mob a great horned owlet, making it very easy to find this branching youngster.
Crows chase an adult great horned owl when it’s near their nest or fledglings. But there is real danger in this activity! The owl will eat the crow if he can catch him. There are moments in this video when the crow takes a big chance. (Watch for the cameo appearance of a mockingbird.)
RARE BIRDS! I could not resist starting this blog with a rare songbird chasing a rare owl. Both birds in the top photo — a Brewer’s blackbird and an American barn owl — are extremely rare in southwestern Pennsylvania. If I saw a barn owl being chased by a Brewer’s blackbird in the Pittsburgh area, no one would believe me. Both birds occur regularly in San Luis Obispo County, California where the photo was taken.
When I was on a birding trip to Peru, the guide used the recording of an owl call to get hummingbirds in the area to come out where we could see them. Apparently hummingbirds in the Amazon will mob any owls that they find to try to drive them away.
Very cool about hummingbirds. I wonder if our hummingbirds react.