Sounds of Summer May Include Mockingbirds

The Fourth of July weekend begins today, and you'll soon hear the sound of firecrackers, cherry bombs and other pyrotechnics. But those aren't the only noises of the summer season. Mockingbirds sing a lot at this time of year, especially at night. It's a fact that KPCC reporter Steven Cuevas recently discovered.

Steven Cuevas: When it gets dark, he perches deep in a thicket of orange tree branches right outside the bedroom window. He settles in around midnight, clears his throat a few times, then unleashes a serenade that can last for 12 hours or more.

[Mockingbird running through songs]

Cuevas: Sometimes, he holds back, until just before daybreak.

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Cuevas (waking up, groggy): So, it's 5:30 in the morning, and our friend is wide awake. (yawns) He was actually quiet overnight. I think he's in the orange tree about 25 feet from one of the bedroom windows.

[Mockingbird running through songs]

Cuevas: Sometimes I'd roust him from the tree with a wet blast from the garden hose. He'd flutter to the top of a telephone pole and resume his song. On those nights, I yearned to take him on a "long walk on a short branch," if you know what I mean. Maybe with a slingshot or a BB gun. Then I'd remember something my father told me.

Atticus: Remember, it's a sin to kill a mockingbird. 'Cause mockingbirds don't do anything but make music for us to enjoy. Don't nest in the corncribs. They don't do one thing but just sing their hearts out for us!

Cuevas: OK, so it wasn't my dad who said that, but you get the point. And not to contradict Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch in "To Kill a Mockingbird," but the bird ain't singin' fer us.

John Rotenberry: What most people who study mockingbirds think is that he, probably an unmated male. They're the ones who do most of the nocturnal singing. He's trying to attract a female. If he's up here doing a display, and very vigorous with the singing, then he's really looking for a mate.

Cuevas: John Rotenberry is chief biologist at UC Riverside, and an expert on birds. We're in my backyard, in a shady, tree-lined Riverside neighborhood nicknamed "The Woods."

Rotenberry: Most of the nocturnal singing is associated with guys who haven't paired up yet.

Cuevas: But wouldn't the female, unless she's nocturnal too, wouldn't she be sleeping?
Rotenberry: Well, she's probably out there as well. Who could sleep though that, (laughs) as you've noticed?

Cuevas: It's not a very endearing quality though, to impress the opposite sex.

Rotenberry: Well, apparently what impresses the opposite sex is the number and the, sort of the variety of songs that they have. Indeed, the more phrases, the more diverse the song is, the more likely a male is to attract a female.

Cuevas: Mockingbirds also sample from foreign sounds: cell phones, barking dogs. Our mockingbird even "samples" from our own pets.

[Cockatiels screeching]

Cuevas: It's feeding time, and my wife Judy is wrangling our three cockatiels.

Judy: Well this is Dudley on my finger, and clinging to the side of the cage are Buddy and Pinky.

[Cockatiels: "Fweep! Fweep! Fweep!"]

Cuevas: That's the noise they make when they're over-stimulated, or just hungry. Got it?! Now, check out the mockingbird.

[Mockingbird: "Fweep! Fweep! Fweep!"]

Cuevas: What kinds of things can one do to keep him at bay or at least keep him quite long enough that one can sleep?

Rotenberry: Well, I think you're kind of out of luck there. You'd have to get rid of all the trees in the neighborhood, which would be quite an undertaking. Alternatively, you could kill all the grass in the neighborhood so that everything was sort of bare ground, but even that would probably not discourage them that much.

Cuevas: So when can we sort of expect the volume to taper off?

Rotenberry: I think by mid-to-late summer, they should start tapering off here. Once they're done for the season, they'll be quiet. (laughs) You've got, you know, you can look forward to August and September, maybe.

Cuevas: But before August can even roll around, the mockingbird vanishes. Atticus Finch, if you're listening, I had nothing to do with it.

Cuevas: What do you think?
Rotenberry: Hard to know. Maybe he scored! Um, I kinda like 'em. I do have those moments, though, at 3 o'clock in the morning that you just wish the little buggers would shut up. But it's one of the things that reminds us that there are things out there besides other people and our domestic animals.

Cuevas: We scan the treetops and listen for the mockingbird. Nothing. Crickets and distant train whistles fill the void. Do we actually miss him? Every now and then, I can hear his song, or at least, I think I can. It drifts down from the cypress trees and telephone wires. And you know... it doesn't sound so bad after all.