So, I’m sitting here, I’m drinking my morning coffee after my breakfast sandwich. It’s not actually coffee, but the breakfast sandwich bit is true (I make an amazing breakfast sandwich by the way). This does nothing for my credibility in the tail I’m about to tell, but believe you me, this one is an epic tale of birds and war.

My family has three bird feeders. As I’ve been home a lot for the past few weeks, it’s sort of fallen to me to look after my feathered friends, which translates to me picking bird food and making sure the feeders are full. I have this system down pretty well and my family has since come to view me as knowledgable about birds and feed. Really, it has all come down to what it almost always comes down to with those in my generation who appear to know more about things they probably shouldn’t: Google and a liberal dose of gadgets on hand to always access it. I’ve learned more about birds and feeding them than I care to admit, but these guys are so entertaining.

It all started with regular feed from Costco. Nothing special, just a big ol’ bag of generic seeds that every bird should be able to find something they like in. As such, it attracted all sorts of birds, but not very many pretty little ones. As is always the case in the wild, the bigger birds started to hog the feeder. So, we experimented with getting another type of bird feed that was mostly fruits and smaller seeds, hoping that by increasing the quality of the feed we would attract smaller, cuter birds. Kind of like how record executives drive Ferraris and by up the bars wherever they go, except way different.

This plan has backfired, and the only thing that increased was the number of mourning doves that have come to hog the feeder. Mourning doves are nature’s biggest asshats. They look all timid and shy, even their name carries with it some implied tragedy to make you feel sorry for the blighters. Trust me when I tell you this, I’m almost positive that they are called “mourning doves” because as soon as they show up, all other birds mourn at the loss of access to the feeder.

And it’s really not enough that they scare off the other birds. That’s pretty annoying and disheartening in and of itself. Their truly crappy behavior only starts there. It ends with them kicking and clawing each other over the food. I mean, come on. It’s bad enough they’ve ruined this feeder for everyone else, now they fight each other over an ample food supply. That’s just bad behavior. Even from an evolutionary standpoint, as far as they can tell this food may or may not be coming back but the last thing they should be doing is trying to starve out their family. Makes no sense.

So, there was an increase in drama with squirrels as well, but that didn’t last long. Turns out that a lone squirrel can only take on so many mourning doves. That number, by the way, is three. Squirrels bail if there are three or more mourning doves. You’d think with their dedication and resourcefulness when it comes to food (sometime, sit and watch a bird feeder, 75% of the entertainment value is watching the squirrels), they won’t even mess around with three or more mourning doves. To be honest, I’m not sure if it’s safe for humans to go against the will of three or more mourning doves, and we’re at the top of the food chain. (Actually, I think cats and dogs are. Look at it this way, are we really the top of the food chain when we feed, protect, defend, and clean up after another species? Huh? That’s right, no, we’re not.)

But today was glorious. There were two mourning doves at the feeder this morning, totally acting like the king of the hill. There wasn’t even a fight between them over the feeder. Just two birds, shooting the breeze over some nice raisin an blueberry bird food. (By the way, the food we got is basically trail mix. Seriously, it looks delicious.) What usually happens in the wild is animals will gather around the food supply. Look at a lion herd. The big dog (cat) male lion will eat his fill of the choicest morsels of what is brought by the lionesses. Then the lionesses will have at what’s left. After that, the hyenas and various others will have their shot. Similar things happen at the bird feeder. You can always see a few birds queueing up in the trees near a feeder waiting for when it’s safe to take their crack at it.

Usually, it’s the little birds you see, and the situation is sort of sad. Two or three adorable finches or chikadees will just sit there while the mourning doves bolt down their fill. I guess it’s good to be the king. It’s even sadder when you see that it’s your favorite cardinal (who I recognize by the coloring as the one that feeds it’s young at the feeder) getting smacked around. Today was different though.

Oh yes, today was different. The birds rose up as one and ousted those fascist mourning doves, claws clamped firmly on the feed supply. Actually, it was just a blue jay.

This blue jay apparently is the Duke Nukem of birds. Any child who grew up in the nineties will understand the reference involving steel and certain parts of anatomy in which our society has deemed men keep their valor and courage. This blue jay had two brass ones.

First, it flew from the tree and smacked one of the mourning doves. Not hard, not claws out, but glanced it with it’s wings the way you’d expect someone to hit a friend on the back of the head for saying something stupid. Just a friendly warning sign it’s time to shut up and possibly relocate to another state. The message was received post haste, and the bird left to find easier food supplies.

But the other was not so lucky. Rather, it was far more stupid than his compadre. He defiantly persisted in eating his fill and started to puff up his feathers. The jay started bouncing back and forth on the railing of my porch, waiting for his moment to get a little snickety snack. Finally, he spotted his opening. The mourning dove flapped it’s wings wide (because in the animal kingdom, apparently just making yourself look bigger qualifies as being bigger and therefore more intimidating) and practically screamed “Come at me bro”.

Then the coolest thing ever happened to me. It was like something out of an action flick. The jay looked at me, just for a moment. It was asking me something. In it’s eyes I saw the need to throw off the bonds of servitude to the oppressors, but it needed the go ahead. I nodded.

Seriously, I nodded at that bird, and he went for it.

The bird just flew up to the feeder, planted its feet on the mourning dove, and pushed it off. Just pushed that bugger right off the feeder. The mourning dove fell about three feet and then flew away, but let me tell you what that jay did not even eat. It just took one or two seeds, and flew off, allowing all the smaller birds to come and eat. The jay just wanted to fend off the oppressors for the little birds who could not speak up.

Right now, as I write this, my favorite cardinal is here, feeding her family. It’s adorable. And the blue jay is sitting in the tree just out of sight, waiting for when he will be needed again.

Blue jays, it turns out, are a combination of the revolutionary freedom fighter and Batman.