POSTED…..“Beware of Mocking Bird”

I thought I would tell everyone about one of my favorite but sometimes annoying birds that I have the pleasure of living in my yard. I have a very smart and sassy Mocking Bird, Actually I have many Mocking birds that nest near my house but this one is different from the rest. He loves to spend his days playing games with me. He is a very conceited bird and loves to show off his wings. To get my attention he perches on the electrical wire behind my house and has a routine of prancing from side to side with his wings spread then does a flip in the air and lands on the exact spot he started then says (he, he). He does this several times to show off. He is so beautiful and he knows it. I call him Brutus, It just fits him perfectly. He is also a big bully.

I don’t see the mocking birds at my feeders but they seem to like stale bread and they love jelly sandwiches. I sometimes put fruit on a wire feeder for them, they seem to like that too. They also like to play in the birdbath too, sometime emptying it totally while playing and bathing.
Brutus has many sounds and a very amazing vocabulary. One day he played a prank on the other birds that have taken up residence in my birdhouses and trees. While soft chattering was coming from everywhere from the birds contentedly nesting in the hidden depths of the trees there was a very loud owl hoot, sending small birds franticly flying off and cautiously returning a few minutes later when no predatory owl showed itself, After about 5 or 6 times , the smaller birds didn’t know what to do . After scanning the area I finally spotted him, Brutus, I should have known, he was in one of the highest trees doing flips between his owl noises as if

laughing at all of the fuss he was creating with his little prank . He actually has a sense of humor.

Sometimes his pranks are on my dogs, Flying from spot to spot meowing like a cat and flying to a different spot when the dogs get there to look for the cat, until they give up or get tired. When he has a nest to defend it’s a different story though, No more games he swoops at them and chases them away from the corner of the yard where he has claimed a large wild
bush of some sort that swallows up the fence each year. Every one knows to stay away from that bush. It belongs to Brutus.

One particular nice day, I got all the tools out that I needed to do a much needed weeding in the garden and sat my phone on the picnic table to wait for an important call, and set about weeding in an area that is for my frog statues, when I heard the phone ring, I got off my knees and wiped the dirt from my hands and ran to the phone (none of this is easy for my worn out body) Well when I said hello all I got was a dial tone??????? O.k. fine, Hoping it wasn’t the call I was waiting on, I set back to work when I heard it ring again. Again no answer. This time I took the phone with me to save some pain as well as time and set it on the ground. Shortly after I got busy again, I heard it ringing I said hello and the dial tone greeted me again only this time I still heard the ringing. Hmmmmmm, What’s going on ? I looked around towards the sound and there was Brutus on the fence doing his flips. I just know he was laughing at me. Now is that a smart bird or what? He tried it for about 20 more minutes before giving up.

He has many sounds that I’m sure he learns somewhere. He can bark, which really messes with the dogs minds, because I’m sure they wonder why he looks like a bird but sounds like a dog. He makes a very convincing baby crying too. As well as a siren, weed eater, He can yell “Mom”just like the kids next door and a knocking noise and many other sounds. He just loves to show off. But his biggest trick yet is making a missile sound when he comes in for a landing or is swooping at the dogs. I know they use to have Mocking birds as pets long ago, Could you just imagine what he would try inside? I think I’d rather him be a free agent and live outside for my sanity’s sake.