The Mockingbird

In early March of this year I attended a conference in St. George, Utah (in the extreme southwest corner of the State), and, after the conference wrapped up one afternoon, I drove down to the Virgin River to enjoy the Spring sunshine.

When I got out of the car, I noticed a bird sitting on top of a telephone pole and singing the most beautiful music--a song somehow familiar and yet unfamiliar at the same time. "I should know that bird," was my thought at the time. And then it hit me: the song wasn't repeating, but changing, and--just like that--mystery solved: I'd stumbled across a Mockingbird, my favorite bird of the East, here in the arid West and singing its heart out, like Mockingbirds do.

I love Mockingbirds. Unlike other birds, who repeat--endlessly--the same two or three note theme, Mockingbirds are masters of innovation. A single Mockingbird may have a repetoire of up to 40 different songs, many incorporating sounds from the world around it, including things like car alarms. Seriously. When we lived in Kensington, Maryland, and I often worked late into the night, a Mockingbird down the street would often start calling at about 1:00 a.m., and that particular bird loved car alarms, doing any number of variations on the same, basic, car alarm theme.

What a great bird. If you have them in the area where you live, consider yourself fortunate, 'cause they can sing like nobody's business.

(Photo courtesy of trisheroverton on Flickr; available at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/11437102@N00/384245868/.)