Local wildlife

I live in NYC. There are cars and homeless people, broken sidewalks and movie theaters. In a general way, the wild life population is pretty homogenous: squirrels, pigeons, stray cats, and rats. Oh, and cockroaches. Birds we have: sparrows, grackles.

So why does my neighborhood have a surfeit of songbirds? We have thrushes that warble their liquidy song at twilight, and there's a mockingbird that lives right outside the apartment window that does its car-alarm song at 3:00 am.

Not that I'm complaining. Just mystified.

Other wildlife in my neighborhood: hippies. Yeah, I don't know. But there are these two hippy kids, with their bushy heads full of long white-people dreadlocks, wearing tattered tie-dyed clothes - and sporting BARE FEET. I kind of think maybe they live in one of the buildings, which would be really funny cause it's a co-op, and I love the idea of hippies in a Manhattan co-op. Lordy.

More on the mocking bird

It occurs to me, as I get ready to go to work and that mockingbird does its thing outside the window, that mockingbirds are the perfect city songbird - because they're every songbird in one! A modern convenience!

For anyone who's never heard one sing, a mockingbird doesn't have its own song - it just imitates other birds (and sometimes car alarms or whatever else is in its environment). Its pattern is to repeat a bird call twice and then move on to another one. And these birdies have incredible range and stamina. They can sing for hours - however long it takes to get a mate. Or pick a fight.