The Phantom Birdsong CD

by James K. Sayre

The phantom birdsong CD. It was dusk; the sun had just settled into the evening's perennial fog-bank in the western sky. I'd finally finished a long dinner and was absentmindedly watching an Oakland A's game on TV, when I thought that I heard bird calls coming from the stands. I checked to make sure "American Bird Songs" CD wasn't playing; that wasn't it.

Then I hypothesized that my increasingly senile elderly mind was playing a next trick on me by converting baseball fan noises (with horns, whistles and whatever) into some background bird calls. The half-inning over, I switched the TV to the Hawai'ian music channel. Hmm, now they're Hawai'ian bird calls?

Finally I realized these calls were coming through the open bedroom window. It was the local male Mockingbird,, perched on the old rooftop TV antenna, performing one of his evening midsummer serenades, which included a variety of different calls.

As we weave our increasingly impenetrable technological cocoons around ourselves, it is reassuring that Mother Nature can still occasionally break in and say hello now and then.

A couple of weeks ago, this same Mockingbird had performed what I thought was a rather odd and cheeky maneuver. For the first time in several months, I drove home with a gold Oldsmobile sedan, instead of the usual red Pontiac sedan. After I parked the Olds in front yard parking spot, I sat inside for a few seconds of woolgathering. Suddenly, the Mockingbird flew down and hopped on to the engine hood and carefully eyed me.

After a few seconds, his curiosity apparently satisfied, he flew back to his perch on the telephone wires. It's like he was thinking: What's your problem, buster? Showing off your new (old) car?

Maybe I should be thankful for having a watch-Mockingbird who carefully checks out possible intruders in his territory (and my yard).

Published in July 2007 in the Berkeley Daily Planet and in Gary Bogue's nature column in the Contra Costa Times.

End.

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