Brooklyn Bird Watch: April 4
Northern Mockingbird. Scientific Name: Mimus polyglottos
Today, Brooklyn Bird Watch features a Heather Wolf photo of a Northern Mockingbird photographed in Brooklyn Bridge Park. Since I spend lots of time in Florida, I am proud to point out that the Northern Mockingbird is our State Bird, and there are four other southern states that claim this interesting bird as their official state bird; Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Texas.
The scientific name means “many-tongued thrush.”
And springtime is an appropriate time to feature this bird, as the Cornell Lab points out; “If you’ve been hearing an endless string of 10 or 15 different birds singing outside your house, you might have a Northern Mockingbird in your yard. These slender-bodied, predominantly gray birds apparently pour all their color into their personalities. They sing almost endlessly, even sometimes at night, and they flagrantly harass birds that intrude on their territories, flying slowly around them or prancing toward them, legs extended, flaunting their bright white wing patches.”