Ha! More puns on multiple levels!
So sometime last year, when out early, I observed a northern mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos) on top of a Leyland cypress tree, venting forth with a varied and seemingly neverending barrage of calls, many of them lifted from other birds; I vowed then to return with the long lens and tripod and capture video of it. This finally happened, oh, eighteen days ago now, and I’m just now putting them up. Truth is, with other things going on I forgot I had them, and then further other things went on and I didn’t get to them. So yes, you could have had the benefit of this video quite some time back, had I been more of a man. I am instead more of a… what kind of animal procrastinates and forgets a lot? More of one of those, anyway.
If you listen carefully right at 2:24, you might hear a very faint, wavering hum, which was a hummingbird coming to the salvia flowers right behind me – I did indeed change position to try and capture this later, but it never returned. Maybe it’ll only be another year before I snag that…
When I’m out with someone observing wildlife, I will usually try to attract their attention to something specific with a particular whistle, since virtually no wildlife that I’ve encountered pays any attention to such, unlike actually calling their name or anything. I say this because a few days after recording these clips, The Girlfriend was walking down the driveway directly underneath this tree and heard me whistle for attention – except I wasn’t there. Apparently, the little plagiarizer we’ve seen here has heard me whistle at some point, and has added this to his own collection. She assures me it’s a perfect match, and confused her for a moment.
Were I more adept at distinguishing songbird calls, I’d identify a few of these for you, but I’ve never memorized many at all. I do know there are bluejay and goldfinch in there, but somehow not Carolina wren, which are extremely common in the area. No wood duck calls either. Lazy…