Morning seranade

If you are a faithful reader of my ramblings - either one of you - you know that I love to sit out on the patio of a morning, drink my cup of Community brand Cafe Special coffee and survey my kingdom (aka my back yard). I have surveyed more striking kingdoms, but this one works just fine for me. Of course, here of late it has been hard to be comfortable while engaging in this practice. Some hot, sticky mornings it's just not worth it.

But on those occasions when I can stick around for a while I am rewarded with a morning serenade from a very vocal mockingbird. I recognize very few bird songs; the angry chatter of the jays, the liquid warbling of the red birds, the little tweets of the finches about sums it up. I could use an app that does for bird songs what "Shazam" or "Listen" does for song songs. But the mockingbird cannot be mistaken. It is loud,  has an astounding repertoire, and  loves to sing. Oh, how it loves to sing!

There are other mockingbirds in nearby trees that add to the melody, often by repeating exactly what my bird sings. At first you think it is an echo, it is so true and faithful, but you soon realize it is another bird or two. Perhaps they are mocking the first. Do you think?

I would not make a good bird-watcher - those dedicated individuals with binoculars and life-lists. I can't spot them in the trees. I look and look, but I just can't do it. That's one reason for the feeders. If they are sitting two feet from my window I can spot them. Up in the tree? Perfect camouflage, as far as I'm concerned.

The Northern Mockingbird, Mimus polyglottos, is of course, the state bird of Texas. And of Arkansas. And Florida, Mississippi, and Tennessee. It lives year-round in this part of the country and we know that it aggressively defends it's territory and does not hesitate to harass cats and people that it thinks are intruding, especially if it is nesting. It is well known for its copy-cat bird song and the male of the species often has more than 200 distinct songs in its repertoire. All this from a bird that seldom measures more than 8 inches beak to tail feather.

And it has a place in literature. In the namesake book To Kill a Mockingbird, two of the major characters, Atticus Finch and Miss Maudie, say that it is a sin to kill a mockingbird because "they don't do one thing for us but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us."

And in lullabies:

Hush little baby, don't say a word,

Mama's gonna buy you a mockingbird.

And if that mockingbird don't sing,

Mama's gonna buy you a diamond ring.

Probably a safe promise.