To Fill a Mockingbird

Meanwhile, here at the Aviary (as we’re calling the garden because of the ridiculously high level of bird activity there has been in the last few months) there has been some interesting news. Happy news, some would say. This is hard for me since it is all about my arch-nemesis (or one of them) the Mockingbird. Many hours of sleep have been damaged because of them (they do their spectacular vocal antics during both night and day – loudly), and there seems to be more and more of them each year. I’ve been known to go outside (in various stages of undress) in the wee hours of the morning and thrash long sticks at parts of trees to chase persistent offenders away.

Well, we’d noticed that a particular spot in a hedge was being visited regularly some weeks back, and guessed that there might be a nest in there. Then one day last week, two juvenile mockingbirds emerged, practicing their flying! I knew immediately what they were since they have the same markings, but their feathers still have those fluffy/downy clumpiness in places, and of course they were not nearly as acrobatic as their adult counterparts. They hung out on the steps at the front while the mother or father would disappear for several minutes at a time, going to a food source some way away, returning with some sort of berry to feed them.

It was hard to be angry at the whole Mockingbird invasion at this time, I must admit, so the best thing to do was to enjoy the delightful spectacle, and I took some snaps to share (click for larger view).

Still to come: The emergence of the newborn ground doves… the parent has been sitting on that nest for an awfully long time.

-cvj