Our Mockingbird
For the past month or so, we've had a Northern Mockingbird visiting our yard and our feeders. At first, he (let's call it a "he" for now) would come and check out the heated bird bath and maybe take a sip or two.
Then, he started picking at the seed I threw on the porch. Lately, he's taken to standing guard over the suet feeder. He seems to let the Downy and Red-bellied Woodpeckers have their share, but when a Starling comes by, all hell breaks loose. He seems to know that they're not wanted and swiftly dispatches of them. Even if he's not visible, he seems to materialize when the Starlings appear.
I've decided to name the mockingbird "Michael Winslow" due to his mastery of mimicry. I hope he sticks around and raises a family in our neighborhood.
6 comments:
Mockingbirds may be great, but you might want to reconsider wanting one to start a family outside your window. Mockingbirds will sing all night. All. Night.
Every night. All through the night. And not a whole bunch of songs either. One song. All night.
I plan on appreciating Mockingbirds a lot more in another thirty years, when I can just turn off my hearing aid.
Keith, good point!!! Well, it might beat the sound of my gurgling sump pump in my basement. Eh, probably not.
I love it when they sing all night!
We had them nest for quite a few years in our yard, but they stopped around the time that we got cable TV and took down the antenna on the roof. Coincidence? They're still in the neighborhood, but sing mostly from our neighbor's antenna. They're most visible in the winter, protecting the holly berries from the starlings.
Hope yours stay to nest!
I had a mockingbird stump the heck out of me one night. The windows were open, and I started hearing what sounded like 5 different birds...blue jay, starling, red-tailed hawk? What the hey? I finally figured it out that it was a mockingbird. I like to hear birds sing at night. It harmonizes well with the frogs.
Our resident mockingbirds bring their young to our feeders after they fledge, and that's the only time they annoy me. Those young are louder than all the other birds in the yard combined!
I remember one spring when a mockingbird kept dive-bombing me. I like having mockinbirds in the yard but I must say-that particulat one rattled my nerves a wee bit.
I love to hear birds - in the morning when I wake up at 7:00AM. BUT it is 3:30AM. I can't go back to sleep with what I consider way too much noise this early in the morning. You are welcome to my birds in the middle of the night.
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