Mockingbirds are Singing, but not in My Neighborhood

By Mel Carriere

All around us here in Southern California the signs of spring are in the air, but since we really didn't have much of a winter there is not a significant difference, except for the sun riding a bit higher in the sky.  As I walk the streets of my postal route I try to keep my eyes on the mail but I also keep my eyes and ears tuned to the re-energized  avian activity that comes with the changing of the seasons.  With sadness I take note of the urgent calls of the White Crowned Sparrows as their singing intensifies, meaning that they are probably rounding their friends up for the long flight back north.  In a few days I will hear them no longer.

It is also with a degree of sadness that I hearken to the tune of Mimus polyglottos, best known as The Northern Mockingbird, and I use the word sadness because this persistent, rambling, consistently inconsistent song seems to be heard everywhere these days except in my own neighborhood, where it has been missing for quite a few years now.  Some people wish those damn Mockingbirds would just shut up, especially when at the height of their horniness they sing long into the night, but to me it is a soothing, reassuring sound, indicating that all is well in the in the little ornithological habitat bubble that I live in.

When I first moved into my home in the late spring of 1999 Mockingbirds were very common.  I have an Audubon bird clock in my garage that bellows out a different bird song on the hour, and I remember when, about 15 years ago, a pair of Mockingbirds stopped in a tree across the street to listen to it attentively, perhaps considering whether to add these unknown melodies to their repertoire.

It was also around that time when my wife and I, peeking from our upstairs window, thrilled to the sight of a Mother Mockingbird (could have been a Father, how could I know since they are not sexually dimorphic) feeding its recently hatched fledgling upon our lawn.  These were but a few of the voyeuristic glimpses we have enjoyed into the secret avian world that is available all around us, every day, true life episodes that very few people take advantage of; to the detriment of their own edification and enlightenment.

Perhaps this is relevant, perhaps this is not, but one day many years ago some boys with BB guns moved into a house a few doors to the north, and began the systematic process of shooting down just about everything with feathers in the neighborhood.  For a few months we didn't hear any bird songs at all, but eventually these destructive hominid pests moved away and the birds repopulated.  Repopulated, that is, except for the Mockingbirds, whose absence from the neighborhood's avian chorus that brightens our evenings and mornings is quite deafening; especially when it seems that everywhere else it is business as usual with the Mockers.

I don't know if I can blame the BB gun death squad entirely for the Mockingbird Holocaust that occurred on my block; there could be other ecological factors involved that I have missed.  I also understand that Mockingbird populations are cyclical and some years you just see more than others. But taking these other factors into account, I can also say with a bit of certainty that the Mockingbird's habit of perching conspicuously on a high, open place while singing probably makes it an easy target for marauding boys with BB guns.

February used to be the time when the Mockingbirds started singing on our block.  February passed in silence, and now March has practically swept by us also without a peep from this branch of the Mimidae.  It appears that, with April just around the corner, it is going to be yet another "silent spring" where the Mimus polyglottos community is concerned.


Image is from:  "Mimus polyglottos1" by Ryan Hagerty - This image originates from the National Digital Library of the United States Fish and Wildlife ServiceThis tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See Commons:Licensing for more information.See Category:Images from the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mimus_polyglottos1.jpg#/media/File:Mimus_polyglottos1.jpg


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