WARNING: HUMOR (?) The copy-cat avian theropod! :o)

["dinotracker" <dinotracker@earthlink.net>]

Subject: Mocking Birds [Loud-Mouthed Avian Theropods]
Exapted and much altered, after the magazine Birds & Blooms

It has been said that the mocking bird is able to imitate the songs of 32
different
birds in 10 minutes, able to master at least 180
songs in a few months, and that during an entire season it may master more
than 400 songs.

The male bird is the most vociferous. It has no problem sounding exactly
like a car burgular alarm,
unfortunately. The sounds of squirrels, frogs, crickets, sirens, bells, home
alarms, a rusty gate and
even the whirring and squeaks of a washing machine are easily a part of
their repetoir.

National Wildlife reported that one mockingbird near Miami, Florida,
mimicked an alarm clock so perfectly
that it awakened residents at unintended times every morning. Surely no
other animal on earth
comes close to the ability of the mockingbird when it comes to copying
the sound of its environment. One lady reports that she put up some
purple martin houses. She could hear them chattering back and forth, but
when the
mockingbirds followed suit, she could no longer tell the
martins from the mockingbirds.

They are amazing theropods.

Dinotracker's comment:

Amazing, indeed!  I suspect this species of avian theropod has crapped on
more intruding
hominid heads than all other birds combined [A bird by any other name is not
the same.  :) ],
and they don't mock human speech. Those facts may be evidence of this
theropod's
disdain for us marauding mammals. But their mimicking of car alarms
causes some hominids to return the favor.  Oh!  -- Of course, I mean the
disdain part! :-o
Hominids can't fly.

Huumm...has one of these menacing, mimicking dive bombers ever mocked the
theme song
of the movie TO KILL A MOCKING BIRD?

If you don't live where there are mocking birds, you don't know what you're
missing!

Ray Stanford