I am enduring a visitation from some absolutely obnoxious birds. I think they are mockingbirds. They are gray, with large patches of white on their wings. They are about the size of doves, but very leggy and stripped down and athletic-looking. We also have crows which don’t bother anyone, but the mockingbirds hate them and chase them away.
They have taken to sitting in a small tree in front of my house or perching on my front porch railing, swaggering back and forth and emitting loud CHEPP! CHEPP! CHEPP! cries. They fly away when I open the front door to curse at them and return right away when I go inside. My cats ignore them, or maybe they have been intimidated into passivity by the birds. I tried spraying the porch railing with bug spray and a potion designed to keep cats off furniture. Nada.
I don’t want to hurt these birds, but they are truly a pain in the ass. There are at least two of them and they are aggressive toward each other, which makes me wonder if one has a nest nearby. The most violent thing I have done is to throw a cup full of water at one of them, which flew away and returned a few seconds later with an is-that-all-you-got look on its face.
Are these mockingbirds, and when are they going to knock off the nastiness and start singing like they are supposed to?
Yep, they sound like mockingbirds alright. They’re members of the jay family, which IIRC are one of the noisiest bird families out there.
As a kid it used to be a battle as to who would wake me up at this time of year – the mockingbird or the mourning dove. They both likes to perch on the utility wires outside my window and start serenading right before dawn. No amount of hiding under my pillow could drown out either of them. Ditto earplugs.
There could be a nest nearby. Mockingbirds are notoriously territorial. A few years ago I made the mistake of parking next to a privet hedge in a rather small lot and getting bombarded getting out of the car, leaving the car, returning to the car, and getting into the car. The mockingbird would just graze my head squawking its head off. It didn’t occur to me that I was a potential nest disturber until after I drove off partly traumatized as to why this bird kept attacking me.
Last week, a robin building a nest in the tree outside the front door, spotted the reflective kick plate of the front door. Deciding it was another male in his territory, he proceeded to peck at the door, all fucking day. No amount of trying to scare him away would keep him from coming back and battling with the reflection in the plate. Finally I had to tape some cardboard over the kick plate to convince him he won. Dumbass bird.
Mockingbirds are mean. I have a nest in a bush right by my front door. Every time I go in or out the mother bird flies out of the net and then dive bombs me. It’s scary!
I like 'em too, they amuse me. I wonder if this is just some Spring behavior, like you say the result of a nearby nest or staking out a new area or something. I see mine competing with other MBs, Blue Jays, Cardinals, etc. It’s worth it once they launch into a 15 song sequence though.
Mockingbirds aren’t in the “jay family,” there’s no such thing. Jays are in the Corvidae family, which also includes ravens, crows and magpies, and mockingbirds are in the Mimidae family, along with thrashers and catbirds.
Yeah, I never hear them doing that chep! chep! call unless there’s a nest quite nearby. I had a nest in my front yard once, and the first call that the growing fledglings learned to “mock” was this call. They heard it frequently from their parents, as we passed by the nest daily and the parents were always trying to warn us away.
I have a bird, possibly a mockingbird, that is not only noisy but keeps pecking on my living room window. He’s also the one that poops purple poop all over the white porch railings.
My mother and stepfather have a 3 legged German Shepherd who is getting older. I feel bad for him but he has been pampered his whole life and whines constantly since he had to have one of his legs amputated like a really bad old person. He gets around fine but always lets you know he isn’t happy even when he is outside laying down. It gets to be a little much.
A mockingbird lives in their yard and started imitating him. I swear the bird is doing it just to make fun of him. It flies into a tree close to where he likes to lay and just mocks his whining mercilessly even when the dog is being perfectly quiet. It is a great imitation too so you end up with two of them doing it and you can’t tell which is which. If it was my house, the last sound that bird would mock would be the sound of a pellet rifle being pumped up.
You will never see a Blue Jay on Saturday, for they must each carry a grain of sand in their beak to Hell, in order that the Devil may bank his fires for Sunday.
One wonders if Mockingbirds also have that duty.
I love mockingbirds. Love 'em. Graceful, amusing, charming, fiercely intelligent, astonishigly agile in flight, and loud schizophrenic little imitators and plagiarists of bits and snippets of other birdsongs, bullfrog croaks, car horns, telephone rings, etc. I was driving home on a side street yesterday and must have sat for five minutes watching while a male and female mockingbird did a courting hop dance in front of my car. They never fail to brighten a dark day, delightful little jerks all of them.
One day we had a mockingbird drown in the rain barrel. (Stupid thing was probably trying to fight its reflection.) Another day we had a hawk catch a mockingbird. Both were great days.
I have five reasons for hating mockingbirds. 1) 99% of the time that they open their mouths it is to yap, a very loud, harsh, dry call, over, and over, and over. 2) They spread the seeds of unwanted invasive plants all over the yard. They are too tenacious to pull up and usually come up where they can’t be dug up. All I can do is cut them back but they regrow. I will be cutting back pyracantha, pepper tree, and asparagus fern for the rest of my life. 3) They poop on the mailbox. This is not in itself a real big deal but adds more icing to the obnoxious cake. 4) I have a hard time growing tomatoes (too hot here). If I do finally get a tomato, more often than not, a mockingbird will peck holes in
it, ruining it. 5) The worst thing of all are the babies. The let out a very loud (heard in the house), shrill shriek every second from dawn to dusk. They are so loud that I can hear them in the house when the nest is across the street. Yes, double-glazed windows are closed. This goes on from mid March until the end of August, pretty much ruining my outdoor time. Unlike normal birds, it’s not one brood and they’re done. Last year they had at least four broods. This happens every year. We try to make our yard hostile to mockingbirds but they will not go away. Too bad the houses are too close together for b-b guns. I mean that.
People from the South like them because they are Confederate gray. Give it up. The war was 150 years ago. You lost.
Except when they do it at 3 a.m., night after night :D.
I like mockingbirds generally, particularly those that don’t live near me. I hate bachelor male mockingbirds that decide to use my yard as a grandstand and sing all through the night.
