Listen to the Mockingbird.

A rriving home from work on Saturday, I shut off Traveller, my scooter, and was greeted by a host of screeching birds. Looking up into the branches overhead I saw at least 12 or 15 mockingbirds. Unformatted juveniles was my guess, by the fact that there was not an illegally copied sound file among the lot of them. So they sat on the branches yelling back and forth.

Mockingbirds are an especial interest of mine: not as a scientist but rather as an enjoyer. They come back to the same roost each year or so it seems. When I was in High School we had one in the trees that seemed to have perfected the "in heat" calling of our Siamese Cat. And so its song was "whippoorwill! whippoorwill! whippoorwill! tweeee! tweeee! tweeee! tweedle! tweedle! tweedle! Mworrrrrrrrrrrrgh!" The same bird (or another with the same song) came back the next summer. Our cat had died by then, but its voice lived on. I can always tell when I'm being tormented by a mockingbird: all the various parts of the song seem to start and end on the same notes. They are all transposed into the same key signature or Tone if you will.

Anyway, so I stood their listening to a massed choir of the mockingbirds' native voices. It was scary. There's a reason they steal the songs of other birds. They may sing like Cindi Lauper. But they talk like her, too. *shudder*

So I whistled. Just one note (in the right key) for two seconds: Tooo!. Then I did it again. Tooo! Nearly instantly I heard the call echoed above in the trees. Tooo! High above me I saw a bird do a touchdown dance, bobbing up and down on his branch. Tooo! I said. Tooo! came the reply. So clear was the copy that I thought another human might be standing behind me. Tooo! And it was instantly followed by another from a different direction. Tooo! I said. Tooo! Tooo! came the reply and then Tooo! Tooo! and another Tooo! from somewhere over the trees. Soon the whole flock was bouncing up and down in their touchdown dance. And I was laughing. Tooo! Tooo!Tooo! Tooo! Tooo!Tooo!

Mischief.

I formatted a whole flock of mockingbirds with a mockingbird virus.

Score!

So if you hear a mocking bird singing its song and amid all the twitters and trills it suddenly stops and says Tooo! well, you'll know you've picked up one of mine.

Beside them will the birds of the heaven lodge, from the midst of the rocks will they give voice. There will the sparrows make their nests; the house of the heron is chief among them. How magnified are Thy works, O Lord! In wisdom hast Thou made them all!