The mockingbird has been alternately revered and reviled throughout its history.
In the world of music, when you borrow part of a tune and incorporate into your own song, it’s called “sampling.†In nature, it’s called “mimicry.†There’s actually a group of birds that create their own songs from the noises they hear around them, including other birds’ songs, frog and insect calls — and some times, even car alarms and sirens. Each bird has it’s own unique version.
Three species of these mimics nest in New Hampshire: the brown thrasher, the catbird, and the northern mockingbird. Aside from their appearance, you can tell the different birds apart by the number of times they each repeat their repertoire. The thrasher tends to sing each snippet once, the catbird twice, and the mockingbird three times.
The most common of these very vocal avians, the mockingbird can be found in densely populated places, including urban centers. Light gray and robin-sized, mockingbirds often flash the bold white patches on their wings and tails when flying from shrub to shrub.
Most people know the mockingbird for its habit of singing non-stop from a high perch — often quite early in the morning. This sometimes makes it fairly unpopular with its human neighbors.
Interestingly, it was just this vocal virtuosity that once made mockingbirds hugely popular as pets in the 1800s. This well-covered song comes from this time. In fact, demand for this tenacious tunester was so intense that it nearly wiped the species out around many big cities. But as anyone lucky enough to live near a mockingbird can tell you, the species has since made a vigorous, if not vociferous, recovery.
