I’ve heard it said that mockingbirds are so-named because they mock other birds. Is this true? I’ve never heard them do anything but their typical call, but I am not an avid bird watcher, either.
To mock something up, is to construct an imitation - its been in use in that way for a long time.
Mock turtle soup, mock examinations(when you do practice exams before doing the real thing)
The word mock has several degrees of meaning, from imitate through to insult - it depemds upon the context.
Mockingbirds are mimics, so I can imagine some person conflating it with the wrong meaning - this just means they do not understand things too well or they are deliberately attmetping to mislead - your call.
Many birds, including the mocking birds, exhibit this trait, which might serve as a kind of sonic camouflage, a trick used to infiltrate other flocks, or simply play.
The name mockingbird does refer to the habit of the species of imitating the songs of other birds in its own singing.
I would guess that you think this because you are not familiar with the songs of other birds. It can be quite entertaining to listen to a mockingbird (or other mimicking species) singing and seeing how many different songs of other birds you can identify in its song.
More information on bird mimicry can be found in my Staff Report How come parrots etc talk but chickens don’t?
Here’s a youtube video of another mimic, the superb lyrebird. Pretty cool animals. Here’s another that is taking the piss just a little.
This spring I noticed another bird was imitating a different bird’s rhythm and pattern. It was weird to hear two completely different sounding bird voices using the same on and off pattern. In the distant past I’ve heard a bird do a machine sounds.
At Florida Field in Gainesville I heard one imitate a referee’s whistle (on an off-gameday).
The trait probably has some elements of sexual selection (the wider the repertoire the more attractive to the opposite sex, natch, tho female mockers sing too.
I’ve also heard a mockingbird imitating frogs.
To me, mocking implies some sort of unflattering connotation, usually something that is lesser quality. A quick Google search with “define: mock” seems to back this up.
So is the name a rap?
“Mock” also means simply “imitate” or “mimic”; the narrower definition of “imitate with derisive intent” is secondary.
The bird’s species name is Mimus polyglottos, meaning “many-tongued mimic.”
When I was a kid, my parents had a phone in their room that had a very distinctive ring–relatively high-pitched and with a fast warble. Frequently, we would hear the phone ring and one of us would answer it to find no one on the other end. We thought it was some defect in the phone or phantom rings from the phone company. Until we discovered that there was a mockingbird nesting in the trellis outside my parents’ bedroom window, and he had learned to mimic their phone!
Alternately, if you’re not seeing it and hearing it at the same time, you might not realize that you’re hearing a mockingbird, and think it’s just some other bird.
And I’ve heard tell of an outdoor performance of Peter and the Wolf where the floutist was apparently playing everything twice. It turned out, of course, that it was a mockingbird imitating the flute… Which, of course, was imitating a bird to begin with.