THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, May 1, 1995 TAG: 9504290050
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Maddry
LENGTH: Medium: 87 lines
NOW THE BIRD isn't much to look at . . . no more than a mess of gray feathers with a square tail.
But Lord how the mockingbird can sing. In a recent column, we urged readers to send in some of the sounds they have heard from the musical shuttle of a mockingbird's throat.
Joanne Young of Benningfield Court in Norfolk writes that after moving to Norfolk, she heard what seemed to be a female voice calling: ``Here kitty, kitty, kitty!''
``Glancing across the street, I saw three cats, including mine, sitting under a tree looking up at the branches,'' she reports. ``There perched a mockingbird having the time of his life, and keeping his black eyes trained on the trio below.''
Cathy Lewis of Virginia Beach reports that a mockingbird - obviously sexist - sits atop a pole light in the parking lot outside her office building and gives a cat call when she passes.
Julie Miller of Staten Street in Norfolk writes that she bought an answering machine with a phone at Radio Shack. ``A mockingbird nesting under the porch eaves liked the chirping sound of my phone,'' Miller says. ``He woke me with a dial tone, like Ray Bradbury's `Dial Double Zero.' ''
A reader who merely signs the letter with a ``J'' reports that upon leaving the Bank of the Commonwealth Building on Boush Street in Norfolk many years ago, ``the resident mockingbird was imitating a siren.'' (The reader couldn't remember whether it was an ambulance or fire engine siren.)
Judy McKinney of McGregor Drive in Virginia Beach wants to know if it is common for flocks of mockingbirds to imitate the calls of blackbirds. On a morning walk in the Larkspur Forest neighborhood, she saw a flock of mockers flitting about and making blackbird sounds. ``I was, and still am, amazed at such group behavior from what I thought was a more solitary bird,'' she writes.
Here's one for the Audubon books. Janet Culp of Edgeware Court in Virginia Beach writes that her mother has a mockingbird that sits in a maple tree overlooking the backyard patio.
``Every morning, he sings, `Butter-n-apple, butter-n-apple.' And every morning mother gives the mockingbird a pat of butter and a slice of apple in a dog dish. . . .
``When he has eaten his fill, he flies to the maple tree, wipes his bill on the branch and goes back to singing butter-n-apple.'' In a postscript, she adds that the bird has followed her mother inside the house looking for butter and apple.
Carolyn Harris of Dinwiddie Street in Portsmouth said she liked the mockingbird column and tells of an encounter with one: ``Several years ago we were in the parking lot of a Dallas hospital on a hot Texas night listening and trying to identify the various bird songs when it ended in ``quack, quack, quack!'' from an unseen mockingbird. We roared and were rewarded with a repeat performance!''
Arthur Grothouse has a mockingbird story that is hard to beat. He writes from Craddockville, Va.:
``The NASA base at Wallops island established a management school a few years ago and installed a series of electric bug zappers along the path from the residence quarters to the school to assure a bug (read mosquito)-free route for the executive students. The base cafeteria is also along the route.
``One day while walking to the cafeteria, I noted a mockingbird perched on top of one of the large zapper units looking down into it. He was perfectly imitating the `bzzz-zap' sound that the unit makes when it fries a bug. . . . This was the most unusual sound I had ever heard from a mockingbird. Had to pass it on.''
Glad you did, Arthur.
Denton Dabbs of Virginia Beach is slowly becoming an authority on the mockingbird. He writes a very good column, called Rural Retrospect, for a small Georgia newspaper. Last spring, he began an interesting series of columns about the mockingbirds seen and heard around his house.
He has named one of the birds Sassy. Sassy spends much of his time in a pear tree. Denton feeds the bird corn bread from a dish, after learning that he dipped his hard bread in a bowl of water to soften it.
Each morning when going into the yard, Denton whistles a tune. He reports that Sassy has learned to imitate his whistle. ``He will often use that whistle to attract your attention even before you have time to whistle at him,'' Denton noted.
What a great batch of mail! A special thanks to all who found time to write or phone. I'll pass your observations to the Audubon Society. ILLUSTRATION: Color illustration
Mockingbird by CNB