Mooned

I am wondering if I get enough respect from the non-humans around the Dingle household.

Blaze, as a royal, is a pretty entitled beast.

Marshal Dillon Dingle believes the world exists for his entertainment.

And, yesterday, I was checking out the bird feeder situation – you know, the feeders I stock with seed that I pay for – and met this guy.

He was all sorts of mocking me, flaunting his bird-butt hither thither and yon, and so I grabbed my camera and caught his birdy arse, and then a couple more shots…

“Did I give you permission to take my picture?”

“Uh, ya. I can still see you because I am a prey animal and I can see sideways. Did you learn nothing from Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom?”

This little dude had some serious attitude and he was loud. 

I could not tell if he was just being bossy or trying to attract a mate or complaining about snow because I do not speak bird (or at least not his dialect). And I didn’t even know what kind of bird he was.

So I turned to this group I belong to for help… Maine Birds.

I know.

Pretty straight forward name for a group of people who like birds… from Maine.

These folks know birds, love birds… and many know and love birds.

These were the people I needed.

I posted the last pic and said, “other than calling this a ‘silly bird’, I need help identifying please.” And almost immediately, a reply popped up on my screen. It said, “Mockingbird” and then a smiley face.

I cracked up.

This human reply-er was hilarious, totally my kind of guy!

Because I already knew the bird was totally mocking me. He had been all dang afternoon! Wasn’t it so funny, I thought, that this reply-er understood my sense of humor from all the way through the internet?! Man, this social media stuff is awesome!

So my reply was… let me go check… “hahahahahahahahaha!”

Except right after I sent it, I paused and thought… “wait.” And then, “This is a bird group.”

So I googled and guess what?! It is a mockingbird!

Joke’s on me!

And now I am just so excited because a mockingbird is visiting me! I needed to know more.

Another person replied that if I put out frozen fresh blueberries (that sounds funny, I know, but she meant freeze some fresh blueberries and don’t use the sugary frozen topping stuff) … anyway, if I bribed my visitor with said blueberries, he would hang out for pretty much ever.

Then another person mentioned that, if I ever felt I had ten birds in my bushes but couldn’t see a whole bunch of feathery friends out there, I was most likely in the presence of a mockingbird because they flitter and fly all over the place to attract mates and/or claim their territory and they sing the whole dang time.

I am just so over the moon!

I’m singing the mockingbird song (nope, don’t know all the words), smiling when he shows back up to ‘his’ spot on the wintering hydrangea outside my window… sending JoHn out for blueberries…

Trying to figure out how to pack him up if and when we move…

Okay, not the last one.

I’ll bet I could get kicked out of the Maine Birds group pretty quickly if I mentioned trying to relocate my mockingbird.

I’ll bet some members of that group wouldn’t even think joking about that idea was funny… I still think it was a good joke though (please don’t report me).

I’ll end this with a re-post of the mooning mockingbird pic – even funnier now that I know I’m dealing with a professional mocker.

Thanks for readin’.

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