It was a pleasant summer evening. The kind where you turn off the air conditioning and open the windows when you go to bed. A breeze helps you drift off to sleep, the bed sheet just enough cover to keep you comfortable. Then, at 2 am the sound...loud, incessant, rude. A constant litany of noise that could wake the dead. Hours of it. I rolled over and said to my husband, "Get a gun and kill it!"
This was my introduction to the state bird of Tennessee...the mockingbird.
Mockingbirds love for everyone to hear them They know every song of every bird and they sing them all at the top of their lungs. Mockingbirds love for everyone to see them. They sit on the tippy top of the cedar tree next to the garage, on top of the bean poles and cucumber trellis in the garden. Just look up and there they are. Sittin' and singin'...sittin' and singin'...sittin' and singin'.
Now during the day when the sun is shining and there's work to be done in the yard it is really nice to hear them singing. But at night when you are sound asleep and then suddenly awakened by this bird mocking. Well, it's downright aggravating...hence, the request for the gun!
Today, however, I noticed the mockingbird sitting on top of a trellis in my garden. And when I went out to pick off yesterday's blooms from my grandfather's daylilies, I noticed twigs in the crape mrytle tree. So I sat for awhile and watched. Sure enough, it's building a nest in my crape mrytle.
Three eggs and soon three bald, yellow beaked babies appeared. When I work in the garden, the parents fly all around and squack at me...no mocking calls...just a worried squacking hoping I won't bother their offspring. I look in every now and then to make sure they're alright. The other day when the great windstorm came through, the crape mrytle trunks blew all apart. The nest fell apart slightly and one baby dropped out of the nest. I put it back three times. The next morning they had all three settled into the dilapidated nest and all were well.
Now, I've tried to do the southern thing...planted crape mrytles and holly bushes and such in the yard. And I figure right about now, 4 years after my rather insulting and threatening outburst, they might forgive me.
I can't wait to see those babies fly up to the top of the cedar tree and keep me awake some August night!
