Mockingbird Song
Spring is coming in North Carolina. The daffodils in our back garden have been blooming for about a week now, the trees are beginning to bud in force and everywhere, and I mean everywhere, I’ve been hearing the first tentative sounds of bird song. The Cardinals, Goldfinches and Song Sparrows around my neighborhood have been slowly easing into their summer voices, feeling out the spring slowly lest the warmer weather we’ve been experiencing lately turn back to winter chill just to punish them for their brazen presumption.
But the Northern Mockingbird that hangs out in front of the planetarium where I work has no such equivocation. This mockingbird fears no weather’s wrath and at the first glimpse of the release from the… not icy really… frosty grip of winter rises to the top of the shrubbery, or the top of the portico, or the windowsills, or a guest’s car, or a guest… and lets loose with a string of impressive avian expletives. This mockingbird is spring incarnate, whose voice threatens to break the bonds of winter itself and send us hurtling into spring simply by wearing down the cold season’s defenses with a steady barrage of Mimus melody until winter surrenders, kneeling humbly at the bird’s feet in complete and utter resignation. Only then can spring begin at last.
I, admittedly, don’t often think much about Mockingbirds. Living in the south their voice is everywhere, often the most common bird song in any urban, suburban, or rural area. I might even include subterranean as well, in that you have to be at least six feet underground to avoid them. But as the long hot southern summer drags on, a singing mockingbird just fades into the background. Even though it’s one of the few birds that isn’t impeded by heat and humidity, an impressive enough distinction, they tend to become just another part of the aural scenery. That omnipresence likely diminishes the mockingbird in the eyes of the southern birder. Familiarity doesn’t necessarily breed contempt, not even indifference, but definitely inattention?
Except for this time of year. Because while the full force of the spring chorus is still some time ahead of us, the mockingbird doesn’t care. Time waiting is time wasted, and there’s no better time for a three minute virtuoso performance than right now.
And right now, at the beginning of spring when my ears are starved for honest to goodness birdsong, he’s got my attention. At least for the time being.
photo from wikipedia
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Love the photos!
Northern Mockingbirds are non-existent in our area in the winter. I love it when they come back in the Spring, along with the Gray Catbird.
@Mainebirder- I wish I could take credit for the photo, but after a few days of failing to get a good photo of my singing Mockingbird, I pulled one off of wikipedia. : )
Nate,
I may have seen Mockingbirds a few times, mostly around St. Louis but also roughly 7 around the Great Lakes, but I have never ever hear one sing.
Please, do me a favour:
step outside after reading this post (preferably feeling comfortable and relaxed, like during the weekend, drink in hand compulsory), look around you, spot a Mocker and listen to it for a minute, thinking of the poor birding dopes who have never experienced this.
Thanks, I appreciate that.
his mockingbird is spring incarnate, whose voice threatens to break the bonds of winter itself and send us hurtling into spring simply by wearing down the cold season’s defenses with a steady barrage of Mimus melody until winter surrenders, kneeling humbly at the bird’s feet in complete and utter resignation. Only then can spring begin at last.
Nicely put! I have to admit I’ve become a little jaded towards mockingbirds since moving downstate – Buffalo is too much winter for them to sing into submission, so when I was a kid they were a special treat that I only saw on trips to the grandparents’ place. I’m definitely ready to start hearing them sing again soon by this point in the season, though.
@Jochen- Will do. In fact, I can hear one right now.
@pinguinus- Thanks! That means a lot coming from such a fine wordsmith. I’m certainly guilty of passing them by down here, as every bush and fencerow has a singing bird atop it. But these days they’ve been especially prominent, even now as the Cardinals and Towhees are beginning to join in.