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Bird takeover: Hitchcock-esque scene unfolds as flock descends on Cypress parking lot

File image of a flock of birds (Pixabay)

Hold on to your feathers, folks, because 2024 in Cypress has officially gone to the birds, and they’re not just tweeting about it – they’re making headlines!

On Jan. 2, a spectacular avian invasion unfolded right in the middle of a parking lot, and Yvone Gomez caught it all on camera. Move over Hollywood, because Cypress just became the set for the latest Hitchcockian masterpiece.

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Gomez shared a video of her wild encounter with Storyful.

“They weren’t scared of my honking,” Gomez reported. Not even a child’s scream could make these birds flap a feather.

Gomez’s video, a modern reimagining of Hitchcock’s “The Birds,” showcased a winged flash mob taking over the shopping center parking lot.

Enter the experts from the Houston Audubon, which detail on their website that these great-tailed grackles have a penchant for the finer things – namely, shopping centers and fast-food store parking lots. Trash for food? Check. Trees and light posts for perching? Double-check.

But why this sudden birdy takeover in January? Dr. Jessica Yorzinski, our guide into the avian psyche from the Department of Ecology and Conservation Biology at A&M, spilled the birdseed in a 2022 interview with KXAN.

“Grackles behave differently in winter months. They don’t hang around in small groups of two or three individuals like in the spring and summer. In the winter, they like to roost in big groups; sometimes groups of hundreds or thousands of birds” Dr. Yorzinski said.


Have you witnessed a flock of grackles take over a parking lot in your neighborhood? Share your photos with us at Click2Pins.


About the Author
Briana Zamora-Nipper headshot

Briana Zamora-Nipper joined the KPRC 2 digital team in 2019. When she’s not hard at work in the KPRC 2 newsroom, you can find Bri drinking away her hard earned wages at JuiceLand, running around Hermann Park, listening to crime podcasts or ransacking the magazine stand at Barnes & Noble.

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