Prairie Wanderings: A bird of many tongues
By PAUL JANTZEN
Contributing writer
The carpet of green grasses provided the backdrop for the mid-June splashes of color on either side of Gould Creek in the Flint Hills. The rich pink flower clusters of sensitive briar, the deep blue of wild indigo, and the bright orange blossoms of butterfly milkweed scattered among the grasses, coneflowers, and evening primrose set the mood for a most pleasant morning.
On the other side of the ravine that cut through a layer of flinty limestone stood a lone Kentucky coffee tree which provided a high perch for a mocking bird. This handsome gray and white bird attracted my attention as it quickly ascended above the tree, flashing its white wing patches, then as suddenly, descended to its original perch. This repeated behavior suggested a possible mid-morning lunch of airborne insects. It was too late in the nesting season to be courting.
Northern mockingbirds are seen only in South, Central, and North Americas, ranging into southern Canada. They are year-round residents in extreme eastern Kansas, but those of central and western Kansas leave for the winter to return in April.
The northern mockingbird is the state bird of Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Texas.
Mockingbirds share with their relatives, the brown thrashers and catbirds, the mimicking of other species of birds. But it is the mockingbird that has been dubbed "the most notorious of mimic singers." Some individuals restrict their songs almost entirely to limitations of other species. One mockingbird recorded by ornithologists at Cronell University sang songs of at least 30 other bird species. The number of songs in their repertoire increases with age and may include neighborhood sounds such as barking dogs, cackling hens, or squeaking door hinges. The technical name of the northern mockingbird is Mimus plyglottis meaning "mimic with many tongues."
California mockingbirds imitate their local woodpeckers, scrub jays, and tree frogs. Mockingbirds along the east coast who never hear these sounds do not include them in their concerts.
Brown thrashers repeat each bird song before going to another. Gray catbirds sing without repetition. But mockingbirds sing their songs three or more times before changing to another. And they have their own note, a loud tcack or tchair. They can even produce two different notes simultaneously.
As this mockingbird in the Flint Hills illustrates, they often seek high places. They may sing from such high places, or during flight, or even at night. A male may serenade his mate throughout the night, especially in moonlight.
During courtship, the male sings and gathers nest material and helps the female build their cup-shaped nest, usually less than 10 feet from the ground. I discovered such a nest in an elm shrub in the cemetery of the abandoned Marion County Poor Farm back in 1987. It was built of twigs and stems, lined with grasses and fine roots. It cradled two bluish-green eggs blotched with dark brown (they usually have three or five eggs). The female incubates the eggs for 12 to 13 days. During the 10-12 days in the nest, the young birds are defending aggressively against invading dogs, cats, snakes, and other birds. Flashing the white patches above and below, the adults' wings discourage predators.
Mockingbirds are usually monogamous during the breeding season and sometimes for life.
During the spring and summer, northern mockingbirds feed largely on insects, especially grasshoppers, beetles, ants, caterpillars, bees, and wasps. With their with wing patches, they flush insects up from ground level. They also eat spiders, snails, and other invertebrates. Lizards and snakes are occasional prey.
During fall and winter, more than half their diet consists of the fruits of hackberry, Virginia creeper, pokeweed, sumac poison ivy, mulberry, elderberry, dogwood, and red cedar.
From the late 1700s into the 1900s, mockingbirds were sold as caged birds in the United States and Europe. Good singers brought as much as $50. As a result, some areas experienced a noticeable decline in mockingbird numbers.
