TO LOVE A MOCKINGBIRD

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Springtime in my back yard is always marked by the influx of mockingbirds.  The natives are always here.  One is a cat imitator of the greatest magnitude and amplitude.  One rings like a cell phone so convincingly that I have answered mine only to find nobody is there and even though I have opened a connection, it is still ringing.  

We have a baby that cries to the point you want to pull your hair out some afternoons.  

But each new season the mockingbird population rises as new families move in.  It is almost like they got tired of the crime or the traffic in their cities and chose a smaller place to live.  Some stay here, some find the traffic issue is just as horrendous as where they came from, others cannot cope with the kitty cat issue in the neighborhood.  Still others find the human children and dogs intimidating.  

Mockingbirds might be fun, but they are aggressive and mean when they have a nestful of little ones, swooping down as people walk past, picking at their hair, even confronting them face to face.  

Spring, however, is marked by the new sounds arising from the back yard, and this morning, as I was attempting to sleep in a little bit, one of the newbies settled in and it was not long before I realized I have a car alarm in my tree.  Not one of the beeping horns, which would be annoying enough, but one of the sirens.  

Yep, spring has sprung and the peace in the queendom is blissfully disrupted by the imitators in nature once again.  Beautiful, it is, this perfect instinct of our planet to burp up the seasons!  

Please enjoy this season.  Thanks, Mother Nature, for making the grass thick and green again so I may start mowing this weekend every three days in the heat and humidity for the next six months, and thank you for the babies, sirens, cats, dogs, and cell phones inhabiting my tree.