A first-rate mockingbird

Every morning, for the last several mornings, on a telephone pole down the hill from us, sits a mockingbird I wish Atticus Finch could see.

Atticus is, of course, the memorable lead character, memorably played by Gregory Peck, in “To Kill a Mockingbird.” A scene comes where Atticus is explaining to his children, Jem and Scout, his way with guns. He says: “I remember when my daddy gave me that gun. He told me that I should never point it at anything in the house; and that he'd rather I'd shoot at tin cans in the backyard. But he said that sooner or later he supposed the temptation to go after birds would be too much, and that I could shoot all the blue jays I wanted - if I could hit 'em; but to remember it was a sin to kill a mockingbird.”
“Why?” says Jem.
“Well,” Atticus says, “I reckon because mockingbirds don't do anything but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat people's gardens, don't nest in the corncrib, they don't do one thing but just sing their hearts out for us.”

This singer down on the telephone pole, he is pure mockingbird. He chirps, tweets, trills, imitates motors, makes a noise like a cane stick dragged across a washboard. Singing his heart out. When it gets too much for him, which is about once a minute, he leaps into the air, rising several feet on a fluttering of his wings with their distinctive white chevron markings and then settles back to his perch, never missing a beat.

Some Texan from the past had the good sense to claim the mockingbird as the State Bird of Texas. Things have felt very much like Texas around our house the past few days, with the breeze already warm even before sunup, the Texas privet in bloom, and the mockingbird partying down on the telephone pole. He seems to like it there. Lots of bird types perch on that pole – hawks, crows, sparrows, finches. But they come and go. Our mockingbird has occupied the pole exclusively since last weekend. Once a couple of sparrows approached, landing on braces below the beam where the mockingbird was singing away. I got the impression that the sparrows wanted him to shut up, and were going to team up on him. They advanced upward, but the mockingbird turned to meet them, and away they flew, either intimidated or unable to stand the decibel level.

Of course at night, the mockingbird becomes a party animal. Sometimes a mockingbird will take a midnight shine to the bottlebrush tree at the corner of the house and sing the night away. A person trying to sleep can become sparrowish toward such behavior. This has not happened since Karen and I have been married, but she recalls times when she would go outside at 2 a.m. and heave rocks into trees toward the music. I don’t object to this – I don’t think Gregory Peck could kill a mockingbird with a rock in the middle of the night – but it’s not something I would do. I hold a fondness for a bird that would stay up and sing all night. It wouldn’t be a sin, but maybe, for me, a transgression, to diss a mockingbird.