Of a Feather: A mime with feathers

COURTESY OF CAPTAIN TUCKER
I miss the mockingbird. He is like that colorful, fun character you knew in college, but now only get to see on Facebook. I don’t see mockingbirds where I live in Wilmot Center (elevation 920 feet), but I think I’ve heard one down in Wilmot Flat (elevation 680 feet). Oddly enough, their song is such a pleasant background sound in my memory that I forget it is a novelty up here.

They do indeed mock other birds by repeating their songs, but they are more like a talented guitarist noodling riffs than an outright imitator. No bird would be fooled into thinking they were hearing their own species. It’s more like mockers are showing other birds how very easy it is to sing any old song.

In my 1917 “Birds of America” the mockingbird range is said to extend north “to Maryland (locally)” and also “irregularly to Massachusetts, southeastern New York (Long Island etc.).” The 1947 edition of the Peterson guide has its range reaching north to Maryland, although he allows that a few are seen north to Massachusetts. According to the “Birds of New Hampshire,” “the species has colonized northward from the southeastern states since 1900, becoming widespread in southeastern Massachusetts by 1950.” Since that time, it “has become a generally distributed permanent resident south of the [White] mountains, scarce north of there.” It has been on the decline in the state since 2004, especially in the Merrimack Valley.

Note it is a permanent resident, like the Carolina wren and the cardinal, two other southern species that are expanding north (but unlike the migratory blue-gray gnatcatcher). Chandler S. Robbins, writing in the “Atlas of Breeding Birds in New Hampshire,” states that “during the 1960s mockingbirds spread through the Coastal Lowlands and lower Merrimack Valley with scattered records north to the base of the White Mountains …”

Before 1959 birds sighted in the state were evidently wanderers, as the young birds disperse after fledging and look for winter territories with sufficient food to sustain them through the colder months. Mockingbirds are insectivores through the spring and summer and then switch to a diet that is at least half berries through the winter. They are also fond of suet.

Even in their southern stronghold, mockingbirds — like cardinals — are denizens of villages and cities. And when they occur in rural environments, they stick close to settlements. When I lived in Unity, I only saw them when I drove down the mountain into Claremont. When I drive around the state, once in a while I see them in front yards, mostly at lower elevations.

They are easy to spot, as they are robin-sized but slimmer and longer tailed. They are gray above — a lighter gray than their cousin the catbird — and grayish white below. But what makes them especially visible are the large white patches on their wings and outer tail feathers. They open their wings quite often, as they are active birds, constantly foraging, but also interacting, especially during the breeding season.

Mockingbirds fiercely defend their territories and particularly their nests, attacking other mockingbirds and all manner of birds, reptiles, and mammals, including humans. They will frequently dive-bomb an interloping person and have been known to make contact and even draw blood.

Other curious behaviors include their hopping dance, during which two birds square off at a territorial boundary, “wing flashing,” a spasmodic slow arching of the wings that a bird will do when it gets into an unfamiliar situation, and “anting.”

Anting is not peculiar to this species, but they are known to partake regularly. Ants exude formic acid when they are in irritated defense mode, and some species of birds plant themselves on top of an ant hill with their wings spread thereby antagonizing the little biting arthropods. As the ants swarm through the bird’s feathers, their formic acid repels lice and other parasites, giving the bird some relief.

Mimus polyglottos, the “many-tongued mime,” is, along with the catbirds and the thrashers, one of the Mimidae or mimic thrushes. As the name of the family suggests, they all imitate to some extent. The songs of the mimic thrushes consist of separate phrases of a few notes each, collected from the songs of other birds (and any other sounds they happen to hear). The gray catbirds and many of the western thrashers do not repeat each phrase at all but simply move on to the next. The brown thrasher faithfully repeats each phrase twice (and some of the western ones do so irregularly).

The northern mockingbird, our North American species, repeats each phrase five or six times, making the imitation far easier to identify. Furthermore, M. polyglottos sings night and day.

My mother grew up in western Massachusetts in the 1940s and ‘50s and never heard this species until my father was assigned to a naval base in South Carolina. There she encountered a bird that kept her up all night when there was a full moon. They sing throughout the spring and into the summer and then go quiet in late summer before bursting into song again in the autumn. Through the winter they confine themselves to a loud “chack,” sometimes in response to cats and other threats.

In his entry for this bird in the “Atlas,” Robbins ascribes the northward spread of the species to the widespread planting of multiflora roses. Indeed, the plant, which was widely used as a rootstock for rose cultivars, is regarded as invasive virtually everywhere. Its abundant red fruits appear in August and persist through the winter.

As with other omnivorous southern expansionists, the mockingbird’s northern spread is limited by the severity of winter storms. Although they do not migrate, the wiser northern birds may fall back to warmer latitudes during harsh winters.

Bill Chaisson has been a birdwatcher from the age of 10. He is a former managing editor of the Eagle Times and now lives and works in the town of Wilmot. Contact him at [email protected].