Egg-Baiting Crows?

I haven't seen a mockingbird take up residence here in a couple of years. And the last one that was here, I was never able to get close enough to, to get a really good close-up. There is a nesting pair hanging around again, so I decided to sit outside in the shade for an hour or so to see if I could get close enough for a picture. It turns out that I didn't. But I did see some interesting behavior:

I'm sure you've seen birds chase crows. The crow being chased usually makes this low-pitched sound: Uk. Uk. Like he's being picked on, and complaining about it. I heard that sound from a crow overhead, but it wasn't being chased. It went towards this large tree that some Cassin's kingbirds nest in every year. Once it got within about 50 yards of the tree, it suddenly turned around and started flying the other direction. The kingbirds did not give chase. Then I saw another crow approaching from another angle. Then another crow, far overhead, from the opposite direction. Once they were all three close to the same point on the map, they followed the first crow back in the direction he originally came from. To me, they really looked like they were working together.

It seemed to me that the first crow was trying to get the kingbirds to chase it. Why would it do that? It might be just that it wants to play. I've seen crows act like they were picking on kingbirds in the past for fun. But I think those three crows were working together to poach the kingbird's nest. Crows are known to be smart. They're known to be nest-poachers, too. I'll keep watching for more evidence, and let you know if I find out anything new.

Birds Gettin' It.

It's mating ritual time again. And I don't know if you've watched the birds try to score, but it's pretty interesting. A lot of male birds do something along the same theme -- dance while the female watches.

Cassin's Kingbirds are the most interesting to me. They appear to dance together in midair, vertically, him and her, screeching and flapping their wings for a few seconds. Then they fly to the next tree and do it again. Here's a picture I took of them doing their thing a couple of years ago:
Everyone's probably heard about hummingbirds. The male starts at about 2' off the ground, and zooms up at about a 15-degree curved trajectory to about 60' like an F-14 fighter on full afterburner. Then he blasts back down the exact same trajectory, still at a breakneck speed. One round trip takes about 1/2 a second -- Up, down. Zoom, zoom. Zoom, zoom. He keeps doing that until he gets tired. I've seen this display lots of times.

But yesterday I saw something new. I saw a male hummingbird do a hoverdance about 4' off the ground. He acted like he was tied to the end of a string, and someone at the other end was swinging him back and forth slowly. She watched from about 4" off the ground, hovering and keeping herself facing towards him the whole time.

But I also saw something else new yesterday on the way home from work that surprised me. Even crows do this! The prospective female was more reticent than the other birds, as she perched attentive but unmoving, at the very top of a tall ponderosa pine. The male flew around in the air above her, perhaps more like an ungainly clodhopper than a hip-hop star. Still, I think she was digging him.

So I'm wondering -- do they all do it? It might be too late to find out this year. It's the end of the week, and I think the birds have already decided who they're going to shack up with. But I'll pay more attention next year.

I'd like to hear about what you've seen.

Update (Sunday): I saw a new dance. Two Barn Swallows. They flew randomly, yet completely in tune with each other. Squawking and dancing apart, then together. Sometimes touching, sometimes not.