Message from Mockingbird

I lived with my mom for four years in the early 2000's (that's just a weird date to write about.  Living with your mom when you are 40 years old is even weirder).  One of the things I enjoyed most, other than the bonus dog, was her romance with the local mockingbirds.  She courted them for months until she got a brave male to stand on her big picture window sill in the living room and eat raisins that she left for him.  He eventually became so brave as to tap the glass to let her know there were no raisins.  My youngest nieces, toddlers at the time, thought this some special 'Oma magic' and would clap their chubby hands together when he appeared. 

I had not had much contact with Mockingbirds before then.  I couldn't have pointed one out or identified it by song, which is ridiculous given how easy it is to identify them by those flashes of white on its wings.  They are quite unmistakeable really.

To ID them by song would be more challenging as they are mimics of every sound in their environment, especially that of other birds.  The one courting my mom had easily a dozen songs in his repetoir of which I could distinguish both that of cardinal and of chickadee as he ran through his songbook perched high there on his terretorial telephone pole in front of her house.  For me, mockingbirds will always be associated with my mom.  Without her raisiny persistence, I probably wouldn't have any love for them.

On my way into work many mornings now, there's a male who sits atop a telephone pole by the research building in which I work.  That alone makes coming to work better.  I mean, who else is greeted by something so rare as they arrive at work?  Surely even the trumpetfare of kings pales by comparison to this song.  This bird reminds me of the one at my mom's, probably because of his preferred perch atop the pole.  His song stylings are less that of a suburban bird and more that of a hip urban Mocker.  I recognize almost none of the songs EXCEPT for the car alarm song.  That one never fails to make me chuckle.  I always look around to see if anyone else heard the jest, but they never do.  It's like I'm the only one who gets it.  If he is there and singing, I will slow my steps until he gets to that particular song just for the laugh.  There's really no better way to start my day than that silly car alarm song. 

I muse to myself about the reappearance of this bird in my life after a four year absence.  Is he a warning against imitation?  Or a messenger to remind me to borrow liberally from everywhere in the pursuit of my art?  Yeah, I think the latter too.