Your reply is as intriguing as your poem - the cardinals (double entendre) and canting red-wings.
Those birds are so bad-^ss, they swoop down and kick my husband in the head (or bike helmet) when he bicycles past. They're LOUD, too, like honking cars, warning of an approaching bicyclist.

A vast and invasive grassland - now that is a challenge! Planting trees may be the easiest way to conquer the non-native invasive species. I tried that in our wetlands. 20 years later the reed canary is still a vast monoculture, and the trees (only a few ever grew) were toppled by a derecho.

Great name: Brown Thrashers - do birds have "gangs" the way people do? Blue jays = Bullies....