Mockingbird Woes

I love nature.  Really, I do.  I live in a major metropolitan area that has fantastic weather almost year round, and it's often sunny and bright and green, so it's a pleasure to be able to open up the windows and let the breezes waft through.  My street is pretty busy, so of course I get a lot of traffic sounds of cars and trucks, but even so it's a delight to enjoy the climate and I tune a lot of the noise out.

But recently, our neighborhood has had a mockingbird take up residence.

I'm sure you've all heard of the classic 1960 story, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.  I read it in junior high, and it's a wonderful tale that really doesn't have much to do with mockingbirds but social injustice and the end of innocence.  I love it.  But this isn't about that.

Back then, mockingbirds would "mock" the bird calls of other birds.  Not so today.  Today, it's all about car alarms.

And the particular mockingbird that has settled in one of the trees near my neighbor's yard has decided to grace our early morning hours with the cries of various Toyotas, Chevys, Mazdas, Fords, and Saturns...

Not necessarily the kind of music one would like to wake up to at 2:00 AM...    And this is incessant--it goes on and on and on and on...  I've stepped out of the house and shaken the tree trunk before, which scares the bird and it flies away for a while.  But inevitably, a couple hours later, it returns to continue it's singing into the wee hours of the morning!

Honestly, it's starting to affect my sleep.  It's been going on for a week!  I've taken to wearing uncomfortable foam earplugs that make me feel like I have a sinus cold, resulting in something like "mock-sleep", making me tired all day.

Surely, surely there is a way to handle this kind of unwelcome guest--it's worse than a neighbor's party because at least you know the party will end eventually...  This warbler seems to require repeat performances and encores that screech on and on and on...  I wouldn't mind if they were bird songs.  But going through the range of harmonic car alarms is a bit trying...  Even car alarms stop in the end.  This bird is worse than the Energizer bunny...

Any thoughts??


Relishing this in my life ain't gonna happen.  LOL!




Albino Mockingbird by glenn e wilson, Creative Commons License.