The Mockingbirds of Spring

Forrest M. Mims III

Scientists who study birds call themselves ornithologists. They call one of their more musically talented birds Mimus polyglottos.

If you studied Latin in school, you can figure out what the rest of us call this bird. That’s because mimus means mimic (as in copycat) and polyglottos means many tongues or languages. Thus, this special bird is a mimic of many languages: the mocking bird.

The mocking bird is found from Mexico to the southern edge of Canada and in all 48 of the continental United States. It is the State bird of Arkansas , Florida , Mississippi , Tennessee and Texas.

Most songbirds have a fairly limited repertoire. The mocking bird solves this limitation by copying the songs of other birds.

A mockingbird may be able to imitate the songs of 30 or more other birds. It can do this very rapidly, singing several songs in less than ten seconds.

The mockingbird will even copy itself! When I was in high school, my Dad tape recorded the song of a particularly talented mockingbird and then played it back over a speaker placed on our front porch. The bird repeated each of its own songs as they were played.

Mockingbirds have a well deserved reputation for defending their territory and their nest. Perhaps you have seen a cat being dive bombed by an angry mockingbird. Or maybe you were the victim.

We learned about an entirely unexpected side of the mockingbird’s personality years ago when our daughter Vicki found a baby mockingbird that had been blown from its nest by a storm. She carefully raised the little bird until it could fly.

For a while the young mockingbird stayed around the back porch visiting Vicki. But then one day it left and did not return.

A few months later I was walking down a trail in the woods when an adult mocking bird flew right in front of me and landed on a branch a few feet away. I stopped to look, and the mockingbird stared back completely unafraid. Our visit lasted a minute or so, and then the bird flew up in a tree where it waited until I continued walking down the trail.

Surely that mockingbird was the same one that Vicki had raised. This view is supported by a passage by John James Audubon in his wonderful description of the mocking bird in Volume II of "Birds of America" (available here): "The Mocking-bird is easily reared by hand from the nest, from which it ought to be removed when eight or ten days old. It becomes so very familiar and affectionate, that it will often follow its owner about the house. I have known one raised from the nest kept by a gentleman at Natchez, that frequently flew out of the house, poured forth its melodies, and returned at sight of its keeper."

Mockingbirds are pretty active in the woods behind our home on Geronimo Creek, Texas, this spring.

If you live in the U.S., when spring arrives at your location mockingbirds will break into song. While you enjoy their songs, be careful to stay away from their nests. Otherwise you just might find yourself a target of a very angry and protective bird.

Forrest M. Mims III and his science are featured online at www.forrestmims.org and www.sunandsky.org.