84-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, June 22, 1996
On Being a
Farm Wife
(and other
hazards) j
Joyce Bupp
Our visitors begin arriving even
before the sun is up.
The first glides in as dawn is
nudging away the lingering shad
ows of night He takes up his usual
position, gathers a deep breath and
with unbridled enthusiasm sings
praises to the coming day.
Not a rooster. A mockingbird.
This bird takes very seriously his
responsibility to jumpstart the
morning with his raucaus wake-up
calls. Or maybe he’s the alarm for
the roosters who do get in on the
action soon afterward.
Early mornings and late eve
nings find the mockingbird dom
inating the chorus of birdsongs
that belies that familiar phrase
“quiet countryside.” Fact is, our
feathered friends are noisy neigh
bors.
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But it’s an enjoyable racket.
This mockingbird is a virtual
one-man-show by himself (her
self?). His repertoire spans the ga
mut of the songs of assorted other
species, plus his own original ver
sion of rap music. And he’s an un
abashed entertainer who demands
your attention.
He’ll practically land on your
head to make sure you’re paying
him proper attention.
His wake-up calls seem to ori
ginate high in the trees of the
backyard just beyond the win
dow screens. Or so it sounds. If 1
go to the garden, he’ll chatter from
the overhead electric wires
probably commenting on the
weeds that are growing this year
like ... weeds.
When we sit at the fishpond, he
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lea
parks in the brushpile of limbs
brought down by the spring ice
storm. We planned to get rid of
that brushpile, but another bird in
terfered. A Northern (Baltimore)
Oriole finds the top of the pile to
be a handy spot to pause on ingo
ing and outgoing flights from a
nest somewhere in the maples. At
least that’s what The Farmer
keeps telling me. I’ve yet to see
the elusive black and orange fel
low.
And further holding up the
brushpile cleanup is the family of
baby bunnies that streak in and out
from the bottom of the pile of
limbs. They claimed the pile as
home after outgrowing their birth
place a fur-lined hole located
smack in the middle of the straw
berry patch. Recently I had to res
cue one of the bunnies when it
sneaked back into the patch to
snack on berries and became en
tangled in the bird-deterrent net
ting.
Another of the mockingbird’s
favorite haunts is also shared with
a fellow backyard resident. The
li
farm’s electric service pole sits
just outside the front entrance to
the dairy bam. From the very tip
top of that tall pole, just above the
transformer, he sits to belt out sol
os while I feed calves. A squirrel
sprawled over the top of the pole
one recent morning appeared to
have died there. Perfectly still, the
squirrel’s bushy tail hung limply
down to one side; but with the
binoculars I could see its eyes
were open. I’ve never seen a
squirrel so still. Maybe it was just
playing possum, because later, it
vanished. Or some hawk had
breakfast.
But the mockingbird’s most in
spiring hangout appears to be
what we call the “osprey nest.”
Some years ago, our son devised
this tall pole with a flat nest site on
top and erected it on the lower
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edge of the big pond. On a rare oc
casion or two, we have had an os
prey visit; more normally, the
perch hosts hawks, herons, and
kingfishers.
One recent evening, that bois
terous mockingbird followed us to
the pond, landed on the platform
uid began to belt out his medley
af songs. About every 30 seconds,
lie’d stop singing, do several acro
batic flips around in the air, then
resume singing. This bazarre be
haviour went on for several min
utes.
There's no way to know for
sure.
But I suspect he found some
way to sneak under the bird net
ting and was suffering the effects
of one too many overripe straw
berries.
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