Rain Gryphon

A quartet of sparrows at the cake feeder earlier today. The two hens are about to go at it over who perches on top. For whatever reason, it is extremely important to be the bird who perches on the top. When the dirty looks turned into open squabbling, the two cocks fled, leaving the hens to fight it out. During the autumn, winter, and early spring, the hens are the more dominant sex. As soon as the issue was decided, everyone calmed down and got along again. Just then I either moved too fast, or made a noise, and they all fled into the bushes, as sparrows do. All except for the one who'd just won the fight. She sat defiantly in place, eating. Either she didn't want to abandon her prize, or else she was a big enough badass that she just wasn't scared of some human.


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Three pretty bronze and green beetles going "Om nom nom...".

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Another dead shrew. Presumably he's lost a territorial fight. Unlike the sparrows, losing shrews don't walk away from the battle.

There are just so many interlocking territories here. I have my territory as a human, and if another human tries to take it from me, he has to follow very specific rules, or else the other humans will effectively mob him. We're a lot like the sparrows that way. The shrews apparently have no real rules apart from "might makes right". There's warfare going on around me 24/7, and for the most part I never notice.

And then there's the mice, the bugs, the raccoons, and everyone else. They all have their different territories that they hold against their cospecifics, and don't really pay much attention to anyone else. And all of this is going on around me, all the time. It amazes me when I stop to think about it.