Bird lore - Project Puffin

DURING
That Mockingbird
By JOHN V. FREDERICK, Los Angeles, Calif.
the last nesting season a Mockingbird spent most of his time
on a certain chimney. Many times a day he came to the rail of our
sleeping-porch
Audubon Warblers.
to eat suet, along with other Mockingbirds and two
He often jumped up in the air while singing, only to alight again without
ever stopping his song. There came a time when for nearly a week he hardly
left the chimney from daylight
until dark. His trips to the suet
were straight and swift, with no
stops along the way. His song
was just as continuous as his
presence on the chimney, and his
vertical flights into the air be-
came more frequent. He would
spring up from two to eight feet,
drop again, alighting in the
middle of one edge of the chim-
ney, and run to the north corner,
facing the north until the next
flight, when he would alight in
the middle again, but run to the
south corner and face the south.
After a couple of days of this
unusual activity, we timed his
flights and found that he jumped
twenty times in four minutes, or
an average of once every twelve
seconds, and this would be about
the average for the whole day.
In a few days, however, this all
changed; for he was very busy catching bugs and worms for a new family, and
he stopped coming for suet.
Two years ago two Mockingbirds would occasionally come around. Last
year two pairs spent most of their time around here, and came for suet man\-
times a day. This summer these two pairs raised their families, and a few
weeks ago there were eight in our yard at one time.
One of the Audubon Warblers mentioned had a small amount of yellow in
the usual places, but the other had only a trace on the sides near the wings.
The face and throat were perfectly black and there was no yellow on the head.
There were many others Uke it everywhere around here last winter. Several
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AUDUBON'S WARBLER