This past weekend our four-year-old grandson was out on the back patio with me telling me a long story about a swing we were hanging when a bird flew down and began squawking at him loudly. He stopped talking and shouted, "Cici, this bird is talking to me! What is this bird saying to me?" I was confused myself. A gorgeous grey bird was perched on a camelia bush carrying on and on. The bird then flew up into an oak, but within about fifteen minutes he had flown back down and started in again just over Daniel's head. Daniel yelled, "Cici, this bird is crazy! What's he saying?" I could not stop laughing.
Later when I was telling my neighbor about this she informed me it was a mockingbird. She has several living in her yard and after looking up information about these birds several recent mysteries were solved. Lately I had been hearing various birds chirping around my backyard once the sun had gone down. This seemed out of the norm. Birds usually roosted for the night and settled down in my yard, but lately the noise had heightened both at night and in the morning.
I found out the Northern Mockingbird can be found sitting high on tall shrubs, and they will also hop along a mowed lawn. The male mocking bird can learn around 200 songs through its life. They sing all through the day and into the night especially on a full moon. A male may have two distinct repertoires of songs: one for spring and another for fall. And they were so loved in the early 1800's that they almost disappeared in the wild because people would trap them to put in cages for their song. It is reported that in 1828 they could fetch the price of $50 which is around $1,300 today.
My research surprised me in that they seldom eat from bird feeders. I have several feeders sitting around our property and have not witnessed these pale grey birds frequenting them joining the Blue Jays and Cardinals. However, they love wild berries and fruit trees which we also have on the property. This may explain the recent habitation.
My neighbor told me that they designate certain quadrants of the yard to call home and live on your property in large groups of extended families. They are very territorial and become familiar with the humans who cohabitate with them. They primarily sing from February to August and again from September to November when the single male birds are mating and sing far more and far louder. Daniel must have been cramping his style as he was performing a Sunday morning showoff session.
These dull gray birds have one of the most colorful personalities of all the bright birds living out in nature. They often mimic multiple birds at one time in one continuous song. A study has shown that in addition to mimicking the calls of other birds and manmade noises like music and machinery, Northern Mockingbirds have been known to imitate at least 12 different species of North American frogs and toads. John James Audubon was so in awe of the bird's singing ability he wrote naming them the "King of Song."
And that helped solve a final mystery that had been bothering me. I had been hearing outside of our windows what sounded like some new type of toad or cricket just as the sun was going down each evening. And then I realized Daniel's new friend and his family were the entertaining culprits.
There is nothing more entertaining to me than the surprises brought by nature. Now if I could only teach these birds to mimic neighborhood gossip, I may never leave my back yard!
