Mockingbirds

[gramps]

Here on my farm I have multiple breeding pairs. I have owned this farm for 20 plus years. The Mockingbirds used to sing all day and all night. Now, I never hear them. They are as reclusive as a Brown Thrasher. Why the change? I miss their songs. Wondering if a Coopers Hawk, or owls get them when they sit up high and sing?
gramps

 

[32shooter]

We have a few around at times. It is amazing the different tunes they can sing. It is nice to sit in the woods in the springtime while turkey hunting and listen to them. Gramps, do you have any whip-poor-wills in your neck of the woods? I know while turkey hunting in Kentucky we would here them. We have none in my area. Like to listen to them also, but they can get annoying after a while.

 

[Fox Mike]

Still have some mocking birds in my area, harassing the crows. What I haven't heard in years are bob-white quails and whip-poor-wills.

 

[Colonel Daddy]

Still have some mocking birds in my area, harassing the crows. What I haven't heard in years are bob-white quails and whip-poor-wills.

Same here, a few mocking birds but we hear them most often in the late afternoon. Also a few hawks. we still hear the Bob White quail but seldom the whip-poor-will. Years back we could almost mark the day when we heard the first whip-poor-will in the spring. Now very seldom hear them. We do now have blue birds and 40 years ago there were none around here. Seems Purple Martins are gone for good.

 

[Bob Wright]

Well, this is still August, so you won't hear any mockingbirds. Maybe about mid-September they'll start up again.

Then, on cool fall nights, they won't shut up.

Bob Wright

 

[BIGBISLEY]

Here in North Carolina we have plenty, their song blends in with the others during the day and if I hear them thru the night I sing back with a 12 gauge. I wish I never heard another.

 

[Cholo]

^ The Mockingbird is the TN state bird. How dare you! :x

Um, me too. I find them annoying but havn't shot one yet

Cholo-GA

They have been really scarce this year.

 

[Colonel Daddy]

^ The Mockingbird is the TN state bird. How dare you! :x

Mockingbird also is the Florida state bird. Not sure why the Florida Jay (Blue Jay) isn't. Song birds never bothered me, event Mockingbirds at night. Only birds that ever bothered me was a Piliated Woodpecker that banged on the metal drip cap around the eves of our house to send out his mating calls and a crazed chicken hawk that was trying to come in thru my bedroom window right after dawn. Watched him try that for a while and he finally landed on the ground on his back. Figured I'd throw a tub over him and call animal control but by the time I got outside he was gone!

 

[mikewriter]

Damn! Mockingbird is also the state bird of Texas!


Mike

 

[gramps]

The neighbors cats hunt on my 33 acres, and won't let a quail live here. I had a breeding pair last year. Gone this year, as is the breeding Woodcocks. Yes, we have both Whippoorwills, and Chuckwillswidow. I was delivering flowers in my county, and heard some Bobwhites.
gramps

 

[Rick Courtright]

Mockingbird also is the Florida state bird. Not sure why the Florida Jay (Blue Jay) isn't.

Hi,

We used to have mockingbirds who would do their best to keep one awake all night long during some of the warmer months. Then along came some scrub jays. I still see a mockingbird now and and then, and they even nested in a tree in the front yard last year and had a couple of little ones, but they seem to avoid the jays and don't stay up all night much anymore.

Rick C

 

[Mike J]

I haven't really noticed Mockingbirds around the house lately but to be honest I haven't really been looking. This thread made me think about something that happened shortly after I bought my house. I was sitting on the porch watching & listening to birds & drinking coffee one morning. I came back in to get more coffee & when I returned to the porch the mocking bird I had been observing had disappeared. I looked & watched for it but didn't see it anywhere. About 5 minutes passed & a hawk flew over where I could see it. About 5 minutes after the hawk passed the mockingbird reappeared.

 

[6GUNSONLY]

Mockingbirds are entertaining. I have heard one mocking a police siren. Years ago, my old black lab was sitting in the back yard, minding her own business, but I guess she was too close to a mockingbird's nest. The mocker kept dive-bombing old Dee, trying to run her away from her nest. About the third pass, Dee snapped that mockingbird out of the air and swallowed her in one gulp. One little feather drifted to the ground.

We had one build her nest in a bush by the mailbox at work two or three years ago. Every time the secretary would go to the mailbox, she would get the dive-bomber treatment. She made me go after the mail for a few days. Then I checked, and momma mockingbird didn't have any eggs in her nest anyway, so I tore her nest up hoping she'd go build another one elsewhere. It was funny watching our secretary ease out toward the mailbox, watching for that mocking bird. It really freaked her out when that old bird would fly at her.

 

[PAShooter]

I too in previous years had mocking birds sing day and night every spring. The past two years have been silent. I think hawks have taken their toll. I live in one of the world's busiest hawk fly ways. In the past I have found remnants of these little birds in my yard.

 

[rugerjunkie]

The neighbors cats hunt on my 33 acres, and won't let a quail live here. I had a breeding pair last year. Gone this year, as is the breeding Woodcocks. Yes, we have both Whippoorwills, and Chuckwillswidow. I was delivering flowers in my county, and heard some Bobwhites.
gramps

Gramps,
This right here tells ya what needs to be done and I don't think I need to spell it out for anyone. Just make sure that the problem doesn't leave the woods and crawl back home. Nobody else will fix the problem for you and it is your woods so tend to it and maintain it so it is useable to your own liking!

 

[gramps]

The neighbors cats hunt on my 33 acres, and won't let a quail live here. I had a breeding pair last year. Gone this year, as is the breeding Woodcocks. Yes, we have both Whippoorwills, and Chuckwillswidow. I was delivering flowers in my county, and heard some Bobwhites.
gramps

Gramps,
This right here tells ya what needs to be done and I don't think I need to spell it out for anyone. Just make sure that the problem doesn't leave the woods and crawl back home. Nobody else will fix the problem for you and it is your woods so tend to it and maintain it so it is useable to your own liking!

Believe me I have, and I do! The dam things have nine lives! I have shot and hit one cat with #6 birdshot years ago, and it run off. A year later it was back as an adult, that my dogs chased. Last time I saw it is was by the road 800 feet from my house in line with my neighbors house. A black and white cat was eating the woodcock, and received the SSS treatment, some years back too. My next door neighbor's dogs chased the doe on my property, and killed the fawn back in August. They are aware, and the dogs are on a "short leash" so to speak! Right now things are under control, but that can change with the stupid breeding practices that my neighbor's use!
gramps