I am listening to a northern mockingbird outside in the big maple below the garden, as I have most mornings this summer. I delight each day in listening to his enthusiastic impressions of all the birds around here and some I can't even identify. I have even tried to count them several times, but I get lost as he occasionally repeats a favorite and he offers them in random order. He is usually so passionate and energetic that I can't help but join his mood as I sip my morning coffee. It has been a particularly rain free and hot summer, so he has had a lot of good mornings to sing. This morning, though, he seems a bit off. His delivery is not as crisp, he takes breaks - usually he goes on for hours - and he seems to be using just a few of his favorites, the robin, the kill deer.
I think I know why. For the last several nights, my baby has been waking up hungry, and I have had to get her a fresh bottle. As I pass through the the hall to the kitchen, illuminated by a bright full moon, I can hear a hundred bird songs out in the maple. At midnight. I can't help but wonder why he is up singing in the moonlight. Oh, I was young once too and may have sung the occasional midnight operata, but I put that down to the foolishness of youth. But what biological imperative, what evolutionary adaptation - what the heck is that crazy bird doing?
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