Houston has grackles. They do not chirp. They emit a penetrating electronic screech:
Brrreeeaaaaakkkkkkkkkk!!! Brrreeeaaaaakkkkkkkkkk!!!
They are not good things to have in the window outside your home or office.
Most of the time I don’t mind chirpy birdies at all. That’s because I’m either up before they start or we wake around the same general time.
What sets my teeth on edge, though, are those *#&@^!% grackles. As **Jackmannii[b/] correctly explains, they don’t sing – they SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH like rusty door hinges, just like those &#^%!$$@ starlings.
We’ve got sparrows living in the crevices between the front door awning and the eaves. They’ve been there for centuries. No matter how crabby I ay be, coming out to the car and seeing them perched on the awning twittering to the dawn always makes me grin 
Blue Jays and blackbirds are the worst, especially durng mating season.
Is this the right place to complain about spring?
It’s not only them damn birds chirping and shouting, why some people call that singing is beyond me btw. Huh they can’t even come up with a decent melody.
There’s all those smells too, sickly sweet and everywhere, Gah, I hates it !!! I’m wearing some extra Axe to drown it all out. Can’t wait for it to get warmer so the diesel fumes come out better.
But the worst is all them colours!! Eegadd. All the trees and bushes take on that awful harsh green that hurts my eyes. Why can’t they just be grey, like good old concrete.
And dotted everywhere in this sea of ugly green are all of these bright garish flowery and blossemy things shouting at the creepy crawly creatures “FERTILISE ME, FERTILISE ME!!”
I really hate nature.
Another thing… have you ever noticed, when out in the country and night falls, how dark it gets???
Totally ridiculous, you can’t see a bloody thing!
And who came up with making the sky blue? Eh?
Booooring!!! and sky-blue at that, how original…
Besides, It doesn’t go well at all with that bright geen.
Have you ever considered that this may, in fact, be the answer…maybe the way to get laid is chirping loudly outside the window of your intended. Just a thought. 
Now there’s a thought. Knowing him however, he’d sleep right through it though.
People bring living animals into that holiday? I thought that’s why we have peeps and chocolate bunnies. Heartless bastards.
Those damn things sound like handsful of ball bearings being thrown against sheet metal.
When we first moved to Missouri years ago, we did not have two nickels to rub together. Thus we could not afford to get air-conditioning in our house once the temperature started to rise in the late spring and summer. So, we usually slept with the windows open.
Right outside our bedroom window was a small tree which was home to a mockingbird. The bastard quickly learned the sound of our alarm clock! He would invariably start singing a couple of hours before either of us really needed to get up. Beeep beeep beeep beeep…
The first thing we did when we got our legs back under us finanially was put in air conditioning, so we could get some sleep-- with the windows closed. Not long after that, we were adopted by a stray kitty who turned out to be a fabulous huntress. Bye bye birdie. 
Kiz, I feel your pain about the grackles! We used to keep chickens for their eggs, and as pets. Our two Great Pyrenees dogs would gaurd our flock for us. They would protect any animal that they ever saw us feed. Somehow, they got it in their heads that they were to protect the grackles in our yard, because they would see the pesky birds fly down and eat out of their own food bowls every day. Our big male dog would wait patiently while the grackles ate their fill before he would begin to eat. He would not our huntress kitty near them, even though he gaurded her as well as any other animal that belonged to us. Like it or not, grackles thrived in our yard.
I saw a pure white peacock at Featherdale Wildlife Park in Sydney.
My mom told me that when she was young in the 50s, you used to be able to buy dyed baby chicks at Easter time.
Before I moved out on my own my bedroom window faced several large trees in the back yard of my mom and dad’s house. Every damn morning at 5:00 AM during the summer (if not earlier), I’d get awakened by several loud, abrasive crows. They’d go “CAW! CAW! CAW!” and they’d never stop. While I usually woke up early most mornings, I still wanted to get all the sleep I could get, and then there were mornings I was off from work/school and wanted to sleep a little later. How I wished it could have been legal to shoot a firearm within city limits.
Cockafuckintoos…BWA HA HA HA HA!!!
My sister once ran into the back yard screaming, “Shut up, you stupid bird!” picked up a rock and threw it at the guilty party. It was most amusing. All the rest of us were already up since it was about 9:00 AM. I think what was funny about it is how earnestly she hated it for doing bird stuff. Not that I blame her or anything, but it was darn funny.
I live on the edge of the city, just on the raggedy edge of the county line. There’s a great deal of city and suburbia around me, and the spaghetti of highway overpasses is becoming thick. Nevertheless, we are enriched – nay, I say infested – with birds.
The pigeons, realizing that they can get far fatter around people who drop more food, have migrated to the college campuses. The grackles, though omnipresent, perch mostly around malls and grocery stores, making a furious din until some enterprising individual gives them the Shut-Up Signal – i.e. claps their hands – at which point the creatures (I am certain, in their off hours, they pull the chariot of Satan) take simultaneous and massive flight over the signaller and proceed to let loose their sphincters, anointing him with impressive profusion.
But they have thinned out where I live, in the land of palatial apartment complexes, and given way to sweet little brown finches and sparrows, robins and bluejays and honest-to-goodness blackbirds. You would think this would be preferable.
My friend, you would be grievously mistaken.
I remember the marvelous deal I got on rent. I remember the beauty of the apartment with crown moulding – crown moulding! – and a garden tub, and a built-in desk, and beautiful white appliances and nine foot ceilings.
And I remember the day I was looking at this place, marveling that it was within my price range, and I remember passing a lady in about her fifties.
“Tell me, good woman,” I inquired, “how long have you lived here?”
“Bless you for asking! I am only now starting my second year.” Her eyes were bright if somewhat lined, and she seemed quite in earnest, much like the people who knock on your door at nine-oh-one on a fine Saturday morning, attempting to save your soul through pamphlets.
“Indeed? To renew your lease, you must be very happy here.” I was now more eager than ever!
“Oh yes! The walls are very thick, and I’ve never heard a scrap of loud music. There are a few children, but bless their souls, they never trouble me. There is just one thing…”
“One thing? But whatever can it be? Highway noise? Yet I hear nothing now. Do people slam the gates? Screech their tires? Honk their horns?” I had allowed a little fear to enter my heart at her pronouncement."
“Oh, nothing like that,” she assured me. “But the birds in the mornings, they can get a bit loud.”
I was flabbergasted. Not only was I moving into a lovely apartment, but I would be eased into waking every morning by gentle birdsong? I explained that this was nothing like a problem; that it would be an outright pleasure, but she simply shook her head.
“You have not,” she intoned, “heard these birds.”
Naturally, I wrote her off as an old crank. And when I moved into this new place, for the most part I was full of joy and pleasure. The apartment was everything advertised and more, and I could quite see myself living there for all my days.
And then, my schedule changed to evenings.
I tell you, there are worse things than the sunrise when you are attempting to fall asleep. Heavy curtains can wash it away to almost nothing. No, the pinnacle, the absolute impossibility, is the song of
TWEEDLE-EEDLE-EEDLE-EEE!
TWEETTWEETTWEETTWEETTWEETTWEETTWEETTWEETTWEET!
TWEETTWEET! TWEETTWEET! TWEETTWEET! TWEETTWEET!
The mockingbirds, you see, have learned numerous tricks. They have learned to mimic car alarms. They have learned to mimic the telephone. And they always enjoy singing a madrigal with the jays and the finches. My beloved parents living out in the country do not have such a profusion of life outside their windows.
How foolish was I to ignore the sibyllic warnings of that fine lady. I hope that, wherever she is gone, there is indeed such a thing as a peaceful and quiet Sunday morning.