A Third Purpose

For as long as I can remember I have always thought or believed that any animal has two major purposes in life. 1. To Eat, 2. To Breed.

I’m not saying this is all animals are good for or that this is all they do, however, I always thought those were the two things that drove them. A week or so ago I was reminded about a most annoying bird that I had forgotten about for a while. This bird is the Mocking Bird (properly named). I remember growing up and my mom telling stories about how mocking birds would tease her dog Lassie relentlessly. Then I thought again and remembered how they would do the same thing to my old dog Bronco always stealing his food and sitting just out of reach, squawking constantly in his face.

So back to my story…. About a week ago I got up to go to work, and walked out the door to go to my car. I suddenly heard an enormous amount of squawking, hmmm…. I thought, that’s odd. I looked up the hill to see Sally (black lab) surrounded by no less than ten mocking birds. She was surrounded, and all the mocking birds would fly just as close to her mouth as possible while continuing to squawk at her, then landing on a nearby sagebrush and flying narrowly out of Sally’s reach just as soon as she chased them. It was like a bunch of bullies picking on someone, or a bunch of cool kids getting together and making fun of or picking on someone they didn’t think was cool. I mean literally, there was 10-15 mocking birds in a circle surrounding Sally for the sole purpose to tease her. So I have come to the conclusion that Mocking Birds have another purpose in life and that purpose is to be the biggest a** holes they can.