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March 26, 2012

Mockingbird Active at Night

Over the past few nights, I've heard a male mockingbird calling for a mate, and let me just say that it's incredibly surreal to hear a bird calling at 2 AM.  I heard him start calling at 9 PM or so on Saturday night and took my phone out to record the calls.

This is what I got after removing background traffic noise and wind with Audacity:


I'm impressed with the variety of calls, and it was easy to isolate his call at night because all the other local birds were quiet.  He's so lonely!!!!!

Last year I spotted a Mockingbird fledgling clambering around the arbor:


It's a bad photo, but I'm lucky to have gotten any at all since he was NOT impressed with my snooping.  The parents were also keeping an eye on me.



10 comments:

  1. I can so relate. We had a "midnight caller" that would sing to the outside light from the hours of 12 to 4 in the morning. Hope he finds a mate soon:)

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  2. I love Mockingbirds! My dad has one that visits every year during spring for a few weeks...it's always fascinating to hear the variety of calls it performs :-)

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    1. Isn't it? And each bird has its own style. I also like how fierce they are.

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  3. I love to hear the Mockingbirds early in the morning. Sometimes I wait for them before I get up. It's one of those special sounds of summer.

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    1. You know it's getting warm when you hear mockingbirds.

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  4. Love the tweets! I always want to post audio but don't know how. That's how tech savvy I am. I'm going to have to check out Audacity. We have quite a variety of birds that migrate through our neighborhood. For awhile pre-chicken, we were feeding them and we had a lot more.

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    1. Posting the audio was quite the ordeal because I had to turn it into a video to make Blogger happy. Apparently, Blogger doesn't like MP3 files.

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  5. Great recording, that mockingbird does sound lonely! The fledgling on the arbor is adorable. :)

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