I’m accustomed to all manner of wild beasts playing about the patio and in the tree and in the bushes.  I’m also accustomed to being surprised by who goes where and what they do while they’re there.  From opossums falling out of the tree and practically landing on me to more than half a dozen raccoons trying to hide in the tree from a dog to dozens of birds plus a few squirrels leaping and flitting in all directions, commotion is not new to me.  Add to that the many lizards and the occasional armadillo and plenty of cats and…  Well, what I’m trying to say—and doing a rather poor job of it, I might add—is that it’s not at all unusual to see creatures big and small doing their respective things around here.  Yesterday was no different, but I do believe I spied a bird with some serious issues.

I was standing on the patio and heard something rustling in the bushes.  Not under the bushes; in the bushes.  It was around the corner from me, so I stood quietly as it seemed to be coming in my direction.  It was a ‘big’ sound as opposed to a ‘small’ sound.  By that difference alone I knew it wasn’t a lizard.  As I watched, a mockingbird came hopping around the corner through the bushes.  It was about three feet (a meter) off the ground and was leaping from bush to bush inside the branches.  I thought it an odd way for a bird to navigate the area, but who am I to judge such things.

As the winged visitor finally made its way to the bush nearest the tree, it worked its way to an outside branch.  After a quick look at me, it jumped to the tree.  This happened to make a great deal of noise as it cleared the various leaves between it and its target.  That noise subsequently sent panic up through the tree where perhaps a dozen house sparrows were waiting for me to go back inside so they could return to their meal.  In response, all of them flitted out of the tree en masse and headed for the lake.  This move created its own significant noise, and that scared the mockingbird who promptly took off around the corner.

I stood there for a moment wondering precisely what it had been doing in the bushes in the first place.  Now that it was gone, I probably would never know.  And that’s when I heard it: the same ‘big’ noise in the bushes making its way in my direction.  I looked very carefully and realized it was the same mockingbird doing precisely what it had just done.  It was again hopping from branch to branch within the bushes, again about three feet (a meter) off the ground, and again heading for the tree by what must have been the most tedious path conceivable.  For a bird, that is.

As it reached its position near the tree, I suddenly felt a rush of déjà vu as I watched it work its way to the outer edge of the bush, glance quickly at me, and then leap with the same noisy abandon from bush to tree.  This all seemed terribly familiar except that there were no longer other birds in the tree to panic at the disturbance below.  I watched the mockingbird hop from branch to branch as it climbed higher in the tree, and then it hopped its way back down, took a look around and paused momentarily to consider my presence, and eventually hopped back up into the top branches.  And then it flew away.  Back to the bushes around the corner.  I stood in absolute confusion as it once again began the tiring maneuvers necessary to carry it from bush to bush and back to the tree.  I was perplexed as I watched it go through the same gyrations to get into the tree where it repeated the hopping to and fro that carried it into the top branches and back down again, finally returning to the top of the tree where, after a brief pause, it flew away toward the lake.

What in hell was that about?  Honestly, I suspect the poor bird fell out of its nest when quite young and suffered a traumatic head injury as a result.  The entire drama it just played out seemed to make no sense whatsoever.  I went back inside and decided I was better off not understanding.