Common Bird Profile: Northern Mockingbird

Northern Mockingbird (Mike Baird)

Northern Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos)

I didn't really appreciate Northern Mockingbirds till I lived in Arkansas. I grew up with watching mockingbirds in Ohio but there are so many of them here in Arkansas. They live in all the bushes around my apartment complex and fight constantly. Their beautiful song fills the spring air and their complex mimicry fools even the best birders.

What mockingbirds are known most for is their ability to mimic a wide variety of sounds. Many birders who have been sent on wild goose chases after one species or another only to find out it's a mockingbird.

One of the main reasons birds sing is to attract or maintain a connection to a mate. Some species have elaborate dances, flight displays or vibrant colored plumage to attract mates. Mockingbirds look plain, but they make up for it in their singing ability. Female mockingbirds have been found to choose mates with larger repertoires [1]. Mockingbirds don't only imitate other birds songs, they have also been documented imitating a wide variety of other sounds from their environment. A friend of mine had a mockingbird learn to imitate her alarm clock, much to her annoyance since the mockingbird started singing far earlier then she wanted to wake up each morning.

We still don't know exactly how they learn these songs, but researchers in North Carolina have found mockingbirds learn songs that  are the easiest to mimic and the most similar to the songs they already know [2]. Over time this could lead to a wide range of vocalizations as they gradually expand their repertoire. Mockingbirds often mimic sounds in repeats of three, which can make picking them out as opposed to the actual birds song a bit easier. Why they repeat songs is not well understood. It may be connected to how they learn the songs or have something to do with maintaining the songs in their memory [3].

What we do know is mockingbirds are singing machines which may sing for hours and hours, even all night during the breeding season. Mockingbirds ability to pick up any sound in their environment has caused some problems for scientists studying other species. Mockingbirds in northern California mimic Black Rails. This made it challenging for the scientists who were out surveying for the elusive rails because they had a hard time distinguishing between the mockingbirds and the actual rails [4].

This video is a great example of the repertoire of these birds, see if you can pick out the different species this mockingbird is imitating, and the car alarm about 10 seconds into the video.

Northern Mockingbird (Manjith Mainickara)

While mockingbirds are plain in coloration they are a great example of coloration with a purpose. The color white is rare in nature, except in cases where it's used for camouflage (like in Snowy Owls) white is typically used as a form of communication.

The white tail of the white-tailed deer is a sign of alarm to the deer around it and lets an approaching predator know it has been seen. By letting the predator know it's been spotted it can decide if it wants to pursue a prey item without the element of surprise [5].

Northern mockingbirds have been shown to use the white on their wing patches in a similar way. When they are faced with a predator they 'wing flash' to make themselves appear larger, intimidating the predator and to signal to other mockingbirds that there is a predator nearby [6].

Mockingbirds are a fantastic species to find in your neighborhood. Their fearless behaviors and diverse voices make them fun to watch. So spend a little time now and throughout the spring looking for some mockingbirds as you explore your local area and see if you can discover any unique noises your mockingbirds have learned!

- Auriel

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[1] Howard, R.D. (1974) The Influence of Sexual Selection and Interspecific Competition on Mockingbird Song (Mimus polyglottos) Evolution 28:3 (428-438) http://www.jstor.org/stable/2407164
[2] Gammon, D.E. (2013) How is model selection determined in a vocal mimic?: Tests of Five hypotheses. Behaviour. 150:12 (1375-1397)
[3] Gammon, D.E., Altizer, C.E. (2011) Northern Mockingbirds produce syntactical patterns of vocal mimicry that reflect taxonomy of imitated species. Journal of Field Ornithology. 82:2 (158-164) http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1557-9263.2011.00318.x/full [4] Conway, C.J., Gibbs, J.P., 2001. Factors influencing detection probability and the benefits of call broadcast surveys for monitoring marsh birds. Laurel, MD. http://ag.arizona.edu/research/azfwru/NationalMarshBird/downloads/technical_reports/Conway_and_Gibbs_2001_Report.pdf [5] Bildstein, K.L., (1983) Why White-Tailed Deer Flag Their Tails. American Naturalist 121, 709–715. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2460873
[6] Dhondt, A.A., Kemink, K.M. (2008) Wing-flashing in Northern mockingbirds: anti-predator defense? Journal of Ethology. 26:3 (361-365). http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10164-007-0070-z#page-1

Why should you explore locally?

Exploring often brings about images of climbing big mountains or sailing uncharted waters, but the best part is that it can occur everywhere, no matter where you are even just waiting at the bus stop there are things to be noticed, watched and understood.

Your everyday haunts might not seem as exciting as all the places on your bucket list but exploring wherever you find yourself can be extremely rewarding and help you develop the skills to really appreciate the natural world as you travel outside of your local biome.

My brothers at Bare Bluffs, UP of Michigan

Before moving to Arkansas I lived in the U.P of Michigan for almost four years while getting my bachelors degree. Houghton was the first place I lived away from home and so it was the first place that I remember learning for the first time. 

During college I was introduced to lots of new places through my classes and friends. I went to the porcupine mountains for the first time as part of a class, some friends took me on my first camping trip on the shores of Lake Superior. A tip from a professor took my family and I on a beautiful hike up Bare Bluffs one summer.

While I loved traveling around the UP and the rest of the Upper Midwest school often took priority and so I spent time discovering cool places that I could check in on every day. This is the kind of local exploring really connected me to Houghton, and still makes me a bit homesick for it. The little forest patch I walked by every day to and from school, the old field that bloomed so pretty with wildflowers in the spring, these were both places that aren't on a map, that aren't on anyone's top 10 of places to go in the UP but they were special to me. Finding a place like this can help you feel grounded in a new town or new job, and ever since I've left the UP I've always tried to find places like that.

Lake Fayetteville, Arkansas

Last fall I moved to Arkansas to start graduate school, having never been to Arkansas. I knew very little about Arkansas before moving here but luckily there is a lot to The Natural State and I'm starting to peel away the layers. Finding that place took awhile since I got a bit overwhelmed with the start of school but one of the first places that my husband Jon and I explored in Arkansas was Lake Fayetteville, a park owned by the city of Fayetteville. It's a great place to go birding close to town, is beautiful, especially in the fall and is just far enough of a walk to wear out the dog! While this park isn't Yosemite or the Grand Canyon, it is a great place to watch the seasons change and learn more about this particular area.

I walk the dog on the bike trail a few nights a week and I really enjoy seeing the change of the seasons along the stream that follows the trail. The water level comes and goes, right now the creek is starting to freeze over and things are dying back. The bike trail has become a grounding place for me, a quiet strip of habitat just outside my door to connect me back to why I am in graduate school. 

Understanding what makes NW Arkansas unique helps me better appreciate where I am and how lucky I am to be here. The seasons are different here, the colors change more slowly in the fall, the warblers come through earlier in the spring, we get most of our rain in the fall. All these things are unique and wonderful about Arkansas, and knowing them can help me better plan the trips I take around the area and better understand when I want to put the money into more extensive endeavors and when I should just go for a hike on a Saturday afternoon. If I didn't spend this time exploring what is right here in Fayetteville I would lose part of what living here really is and never would have found Lake Fayetteville or Woolsely Wet Prairie, both great areas to explore and most importantly, go birding.

So spend some time getting grounded in your current hometown, watch the seasons change, see what is special there. Honing your ability to observe the world around you will help you on your next big trip and might help you get more out of it since you'll be able to better appreciate the little places between the big shiny landmarks.