Mockingbird 



The male mockingbird starts singing in my apple 

 tree in February, but he's not now in best voice. 

 It's during the May mating season that he outdoes 

 himself in beautiful song, fluttering into the air from 

 his apple-tree perch and composing his music as he 

 flies. He fills his song with love and adoration for his 

 mate, until, almost exhausted from the fullness of this 

 love, he drifts toward earth on slowly beating wings. 



The mockingbird has been called the "king of 

 singers." His repertoire begins with his own sweet 

 song, and continues with imitations of the songs of 

 all the other birds in the apple tree community. He 

 mocks the crowing of a rooster, the cackling of hens, 

 the cheeping of chickens. And he seems to delight in 

 his impersonations, repeating each phrase three or 

 four times before going on to the next. 



Although the male uses my apple tree for his con- 

 cert stage, his mate places her loosely-built nest of 

 twigs and grass in the branches of a nearby dense bush 

 or low tree. From four to six eggs are laid there 

 greenish blue, and rather heavily dotted with cinna- 

 mon brown. 



The young birds hatch in about two weeks and are 

 fed by both parents. In their neat suits of ash-gray, 

 with white patches on wings and tails, the mockers 

 rummage about, and find food enough for all their 

 needs in and around the tree: berries, fruit, seeds, 

 ants, flies, bugs, and grasshoppers. 



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