Title says it all. There’s one, maybe two, of them in the trees outside my house, singing away, doing their whole diverse repertoire, dozens of different calls. Cute, huh?
It’s 12:27 in the AM!! They’re songbirds! Aren’t they supposed to be asleep?? They’re really really loud! I have to close my window and turn my fan on to drown them out! How long are they going to go on like this? It’s pitch-dark and we’re in the freaking Bronx! I mean, they’re not Hawaiian chickens, but damn.
Nature sucks.
The things you see when you don’t have your gun. <Mrs Slocombe>
Considering the mockingbird’s well-known abilities of mimicry, as shown in its name Mimus polyglottos, how can you be sure it’s a mockingbird? And if you are sure it’s the right bird, are you sure there isn’t a grave he’s singing o’er?
I experience this all the time too, except that I love it! Just last night, it was around 2 am, and there was one lone bird just happily singing away, so I went outside and talked back to him, imitating every sentence, and he seemed happy to have someone to talk to for a while. It does make me curious though, why do these birds sing in the middle of the night?
My response to the pileated woodpecker pounding the side of the house near my head at midday [i was working the night shift] was a .22 round and a quick grave.
I figured if I got caught, after 2 weeks of trying everything including hanging AO-hell discs and the fake owl in that spot, if I got a jury of night workers I would get the Presidential Medal of Freedom…instead of that $50K fine…
If a woodpecker is pecking at siding it is sometimes because the wiring is bad and making a noise that sounds like bugs in the siding so there’s a chance you’ll get the $50k fine AND your neighbor’s house will burn down. Wins all around! :rolleyes:
Back to the bird: I’m sorry you are a light sleeper, Mehitabel. For my own part, I can’t tihnk of anything more pleasant to go to sleep to than birdsong, and the mockingbird is my favorite. They can sing their little stanzas for hours without repeating themselves. (What am I saying? They never repeat* themselves*, if their name is true.) Think of it as music and maybe it will become a lullaby. I sleep with my window open, and I know I’ve had enough sleep when I’m conscious of the mourning doves. Beats an alarm clock all to hell.
It could be worse. While staying in a hotel in Chattanooga, Tn I was outside smoking and a mocking bird was doing a damn fine imitation of a car alarm. This guy had it down pat. He would go through the whole cycle sometimes and sometimes he would cut off in the middle somewhere with that little double chirp you get when sombody resets the alarm. If I had been trying to sleep it would have been annoying, but as it was I was just wishing I had some way of recording it.
Yeah, the Bronx is a lot better off than it used to be–so much so that people notice gunshots now. And it’s too dark to use a slingshot either. Plus there’s the whole fact that the tree is on somebody else’s property.
There’s songbirds that are sweet and cute and chirpy and then there’s those that scream like bluejays. This mockingbird has bluejay in its repertoire. Plus, my window faces out onto somebody else’s yard but it’s over a concrete back section that acts like a giant bandshell, ensuring piercing birdnoise is the loudest thing around.
If it’s part of an army, I surrender. What are their terms–birdseed balls and windshields under their tree or what?
There was a mockingbird in the trees above our tents at one of our Boy Scout summer camps. We didn’t know it until 3:00 AM. Every night. And they’re dark, so you can’t really see them (otherwise there would have been some shoes caught in the tree).
It’s one of the reasons we didn’t return to that camp.
When we were stationed in Misawa, northern Japan, we heard cuckoos. First, they sound exactly like the clocks (or, I should say, clock makers do a damn fine imitation of cuckoos). Second, they are frickin’ LOUD. Aaaan, they like to start calling at sunrise. Which, in Misawa, could be as early as 4 a.m. in the summer.
“I’d rather you shot tin cans in the back yard, but I know you’ll go after birds. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”
There is a dog around here that I fantasize about poisoning, some nights. I honestly don’t think I would have too much problem poisoning pigeons. They don’t even have to be in the park.
