There goes the neighborhood

We enjoy a lively symphony of birds every morning in our Northwest Austin neighborhood. Barrington Oaks bristles with trees, platforms where a cast of birds from morning doves to cardinals salute the day. But this spring the grackles, nature's boorish tourists, are taking over the airwaves. The grackles pose a problem in suburban environments; I watch them muscle out the other ground-feeding birds outside my office window. Even the blue jays, not a retiring bird, are no match for the grackles' hubris. Cornell's Ornithology department agrees with my low estimation of the grackle song: "The brief, unmusical song is often described as sounding something like a rusty gate." If it seems like there's more grackles in your neighborhood too, well, it's because Cornell says the bird has become one of the most abundant breeding birds in North America.

But you can't order up birds like those free elm trees from TreeFolks that we planted last fall . When the grackles find your neighborhood, the songbirds become a minority, at least to my ears. This is a quiet place, our neighborhood, and so I know there's lots more noise outside other offices. But then there's the comic relief of the new dogs next door, a pair of yappers whose barking passes for a big chunk of their personality. They must be set on a hair trigger, because any nearby siren now sets off a chorus of howling, picked up by most of the other hounds in the hood. Animals domestic and wild are talking it up around here.