Mockingbird Science

Last night out of the blue a Northern Mockingbird started singing outside my apartment window. By 'last night' I mean 2am--so with less of the daytime sirens, starlings, car horns etc, it was almost deafening and tested even my deep affection for mockingbirds and birds in general. So what do you do when you can't sleep? Science, of course!

But never let that stop you from sciencing, kids.

All mockingbirds are mimics, of course, but the one living outside my apartment is especially vocally talented and he has a lot of sounds in his repertoire that there's no way he picked up anywhere near the vicinity of my concrete-bunker home. I set a stopwatch and in the space of 2:20 minutes, he went multiple times through the following impressions, all of them quite good:

Red-winged Blackbird (calls and song)

Eastern Towhee (call)

European Starling

Northern Cardinal (2 different song variations)

Common Yellowthroat

Carolina Wren (song and call)

Tufted Titmouse

Red-tailed Hawk (the fact that this was always paired with the jay makes me think the mockingbird was imitating a Blue Jay imitating a Red-tailed Hawk. It's like a bird within a bird within a bird. Inception bird.)

Blue Jay 

Belted Kingfisher

There were also several other generic bird sounds and a sound that was possibly trying to be an ambulance siren. Then at the 2:20.47 mark, my neighbor leaned out his window and screamed "IF THAT STUPID BIRD DOESN'T SHUT UP I'M GONNA SHOOT IT." End of science, until next time.