Careful! Don’t mess with mockingbirds

Birds rapidly learn to identify people who have threatened their nest

Mockingbirds may look pretty much alike to people, but they can tell us apart and are quick to react to folks they don't like.

Birds rapidly learn to identify people who have previously threatened their nests and sounded alarms and even attacked those folks, while ignoring others nearby, researchers report in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"This shows a bird is much more perceptive of its environment than people had previously suspected," said Douglas J. Levey, a professor in the zoology department of the University of Florida.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30812137/

Those funny birds, I used to see them dive bombing cats too.

My father read me an article on the subject from Popular Science this morning.

I've been waiting for an avian post to advance my newest factoid.

Thanks.

He can also make loud fart noises, and proclaim "You farted!"

:P

Gas could mess up flying I bet.

They will harass larger predator birds too, I saw one doing it today.

And have different alarm calls for each species. When I have my windows open, I get a 'heads up' when our resident foxes come near the house since the bird calls change from their typical cat alarm call. Same for when the red shouldered hawks are hanging around - the birds get quieter but a few will be hiding in the bushes calling the hawk alarm call. I've even heard them make the snake alarm call, gone out and found a rat snake or black racer in the yard.

Blue jays are sneaky - they use the alarm calls to their gain. If the other birds are crowded around the bird feeder, the blue jays will make an alarm call and scare them off, leaving the feeder empty for them to feast. They will also imitate the hawk's own calls to scare the other birds away.

Also, the birds can tell the difference between our cats. They get alarmed when the younger, more active, more dangerous cat is walking around but pretty much ignore the old cat who just goes outside to sleep in the sun.

Birds are smarter and more complex than most of us realize.

And probably shouldn't be kept as pets by most people.

Cockatiels would be a step up. But owning a parrot is like having a toddler - they need lots of attention and stimulation to be happy.

bonded with me and allowed me to handle her quite a bit.

It was so funny because the jay would yell at her and then swoop down at her again and again, and she wouldn't even react. Ever! She just went about her business.

Never saw a mockingbird do it, but maybe we didn't have them there. They sure are annoying, though. Loudmouths. :)

the mockies used to harrass them mercilessly when they had nestlings. Crows will prey on nesting songbirds.

The older crows are especially adept at cannibalizing the younger birds chicks of their own kind. That's a good thing too because if they were not we all would have a much larger crow problem

One of our cats, Sam, used to love laying between these two trees in the grass during the spring/summer (even before the mockinbird came along). That bird would dive bomb him, until all of a sudden....whack! He would smack them. They would leave him alone after that.

he'd go out into the yard & just wait for a mockingbird to dive-bomb him. The bird would make 2 swoops & on the 3rd, Toughie was in the air, meeting the birdie with his claws & teeth. However, if the birds left him alone, he didn't bother with them.

dg

He didn't intentionally go after them. :)

He'd lie in the middle of the yard and play dead. They'd swoop down at him. Two or three swoops later, he'd knock them out of the air, though seemingly with no intent to harm them. They'd take off and a few minutes later, the process would start again. It was fascinating in an odd way.

In addition to dive bombing my cats;)

I've seen them war with squirrels too.

I consider myself a mockingbird. At the age of six, I realized I had no real personality and merely imitated others. That definitely makes one a very good observer. And on top of that, 'To Kill A Mockingbird' just happens to be one of my favorite books of all time. I've never seen a mockingbird. Time to Google...

Thanks for posting that interesting article. This seems to be a good day to find enlightening articles on animals here on DU. What a treasure trove!

They sure can sing beautifully. They also like to sing at 3am non-stop so there goes your sleep. Last summer there was one who liked to perch on top of the pine tree and he'd sing flutter up a bit and land back down just singing away. A crow tried to take over but he'd always chase him away. The crow was mean and liked to eat baby chicks out of the nest.

http://identify.whatbird.com/obj/158/_/Northern_Mockingbird.aspx

Cool site here someone from DU posted sometime back. You can hear birds sing too.

Here's something else about Mocking Birds:

"Listen to the Mocking Bird' was written by Septimus Winner, the man who also gave us "Whispering Hope," "Ten Little Indians," the words to "Where Oh Where Has My Little Dog Gone," and a score of other songs. He was twenty-seven years old at the time, a music teacher and the owner of a music store in Philadelphia. Winner was acquainted with a young Negro boy, Dick Milburn (called Whistling Dick), a beggar who collected coins for his whistling and guitar playing on the streets. His whistling often turned to a beautiful imitation of a mocking bird, and this attracted Winner's attention and thought. It gave him an idea for a song and he promptly went to work on it. He finished "Listen to the Mocking Bird," gave Whistling Dick a job in his store, and published the composition in April, 1855

Within months this song hit all parts of our nation and people everywhere went wild over it, especially in the South where the mocking bird is a common sight. For years afterwards Southern mothers named their baby girls Hally (or Hallie) after this song. President Abraham Lincoln said of this song "It is as sincere as the laughter of a little girl at play," and King Edward VII of England remarked, "I whistled 'Listen To the Mocking Bird' when I was a little boy."

The song became popular all over Europe and it is estimated that by 1905 total sheet copies sold ran approximately twenty million. This song's immense popularity has struck solidly for over a century. It is truly one of our old-time, all-time song hits.

http://www.mi5th.org/Songs/Listen.htm

years ago they started attacking me wherever I went. The weird thing is that they singled me out.

They smash right into my back sometimes.
This is limited to my backyard though.

Only birds that ever did that.

I've seen it many times here. Funniest thing ever to see those tiny birds chasing such a large bird.

And they are. You don't even know they're there until they circle your head three or four times while you mow the lawn, and they're so fast they're gone almost before you can register what they are.

Really, I thought it was just an abnormally large bumblebee when I heard it. Damn thing buzzed my ears...

a mockingbird would mimic the dog's cry to be let in. It kept me running to the back door all day long.

In a bush. Not a tree, a bush! Right beside the front door. I could just lean over and see in the nest. And I'm short. and half blind. Dumb birds.

Every time Mr. Wat or I (or both) walked past they would dive bomb us. They had to fly UPward to dive down on us. Screeching and screaming at the top of their little lungs. They were nasty mean beasties and meant business. Really tested my faith in Harper Lee.

Next winter we removed the bush.

Wat

animal control lady brings us baby birds. We have 2 mocking birds and 2 starlings, just fledged then all this week. They come back to us for food, dive bomb each other and fight over grapes, sit on our heads when really hungry, and can tell the lazy cat from the serious hunter cat.
One of the wild mockingbirds can imitate a car alarm. Usually at 6 am. Drives Mr. D. crazy.

We built a bluebird house last year, this year a pair nested in it, and every day the fly over to Mr. D's car and shit on it. He assumes they are saying thank you for the house.
I have different assumptions, but do not share them aloud.:evilgrin:

Dive bomb cats all the time, and chase big crows. I saw a Blue Jay sit in the street so my cat would follow it. And of course she did but she didn't get hit by a car. Crows make tools to get food too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYZnsO2ZgWo

I saw a bird do that to a cat years ago. I thought it was the strangest thing because I had never seen a bird do that before.

LOL. One day I know I am going to come home to another pile of feathers.

there's a particularly vicious little mockingbird who always seems to be standing on the light pole outside my apartment when I leave for work - he dive bombs me constantly :mad:

They have good eyesight and a good memory and they don't tolerate fools.