case of da red-hot screamin' meemees

mr. mocker...mad? glad? sad?

On the afternoon of December 06 I was rudely awoken from a nice afternoon nap by furious rapping on our bedroom window, accompanied by shrill hollering. Our bedroom gives onto the back porch, and there near the window sat a mockingbird on an overturned bucket. From there, he'd launch himself up against the window, pecking and shrieking, time and again. During spring breeding season, this sort of behavior is not uncommon in hormone-crazed male mockingbirds and cardinals. But in the dead of winter? What gives?

Stomping out onto the back porch, I went to remove the overturned bucket. I guess in my sleepy mind I figured if I removed his perch, he'd give up and leave. 

da bucket in question

 Staring down at the bucket, I noticed strange reddish mocker-droppings. Whoa. Was this blood? Was he sick? Dying?

Checking around the nearby porch railing, I found more piles of mocker-droppings -- ten(!) more, to be exact.

ouch! cayenne pepper droppings!

Aha. Those droppings were filled with seeds. Pepper seeds. Cayenne pepper seeds (I could tell by their size and shape). A grand total of thirteen piles of cayenne pepper droppings. Oh man. You crazy beast; what have you done?

Most of you are probably aware that birds like peppers. Dried peppers are included in commerical parrot feed. I've personally seen at least a half-dozen species of songbirds eating small native peppers called "bird pepper" or chile pequin (Capsicum annuum glaberisculum). Why do birds like hot peppers? Is it for the shot of vitamin C that they contain? Or for the systemic stimulation/rush of capsacin in the old blood stream? Or are peppers actually nutrient-rich from a food standpoint? Maybe all of the above? I don't know the answer(s), and I'm not sure whether anyone's studied on it.

One thing's for sure: this particular mocker hadn't just nibbled on a cayenne pepper and leave it at that. He had in fact eaten LOTS of cayenne pepper (we had lots of leftover cayennes in our garden, only about 15' away from the back porch), and he was acting crazy.

An hour or so later as I went out to my truck, there he was, perched on a rear-view mirror, hollering and defecating all over the top of the mirror and all over the pick-up bed -- another good dozen piles of pepper-poo in all. 

What the...? I mean, did he eat until his entire GI tract was crammed with pepper??

Ah, Nature. You just never know what you'll encounter next . . .