Humans only celebrate the occasion once a year, but every day is Mother's Day in the great outdoors. At least as far as my backyard mockingbirds are concerned. And this is one bunch of mamas you don't want to mess with.

The spring has been a good one for wildlife at the home place. Most evenings, rabbits graze across the yard. If the grass is cut, you can see something other than their ears. Deer are frequent guests and, so far, have been kind to the plants. Even the hostas have escaped the Bambi-bashing.

A raccoon stops by the back deck several times a week to wash its muddy morsels in the cats' water bowl, and on the bright side, the armadillos seem to be on extended spring break.

But some of the backyard boarders never seem to chill out, especially the mockingbirds. I don't know what these birds do for a living, except steal songs from their peers. But they can get seriously cranky.

Earlier this spring my boy cat, George, and I were both victims of mockingbird attacks. At the time, I wrote off the feline and human injuries as collateral damage incurred while the birds were in a mat- ing frenzy.

Now it's clear that once the babies are born, mocking mamas get even crankier about who comes around.

Thankfully, this doesn't include humans or cats, unless they can climb to the top of the 50-foot sweet gum tree the mockers currently call home.

Up there, the problem is airborne assault, mostly from the crows. I saw it first-hand when I was on the porch the other day reading a bad book.

At first, the backyard background noise was its usual mix of bird chirps, cricket scratching and squirrel chatter.

Then the mockingbirds cranked up a chorus of what passes for war whoops in the bird world. It was clear the birds weren't just talking ... they were screaming their lungs out at a pair of crows that had dropped in without an invitation.

The mockingbirds squawked and squealed to no avail. The crows just shrugged and crept closer to what I figured was a nestful of babies the crows intended to eat.

Then the air force showed up. It was marvelous to watch. The mockingbirds' airborne militia swooped and soared and dive-bombed those crows mercilessly. At first, the crows simply hopped to other branches. They finally gave up and took flight. They didn't leave alone.

A squadron of mockingbirds flewafter them, pecking away every foot of the flight. Tom Cruise's moves as a fighter pilot in "Top Gun" didn't hold a candle to the maneuvers flown by the mockingbirds. It was no contest.

Once the crows were driven off, the mockingbirds returned to the nesting tree and calm prevailed. At least for a while.

An hour or so later, the crows came back. This time, it didn't take half as long for the mockingbirds to run them off. I never heard another peep. I hoped the baby birds survived the crows' visit. If not, it wasn't because their mothers and family members didn't do all they could to protect them from predators.

The incident left me with a grudging respect for mockingbirds. And a wish that more human families cared as much about their kids.

(Send your e-mail comments to: alex@newnan.com)