Seeing a mockingbird
A mockingbird in your yard has a reputation for knowing too much: Southern lore called it the tattle bird, a carrier of news. Science adds that nesting mockingbirds can learn to recognize one person within days.
What it may mean
In the old South, the mockingbird had a reputation. African American lore, as a 1903 collection reports, credited it with uncanny wisdom and an understanding of human speech, and nicknamed it the tattle bird or meddle bird, a bearer of bad news. The bird earns some of that. It sits on the highest post or antenna in the yard, misses very little and repeats almost anything it hears, from a cardinal's whistle to a squeaky gate. Every street has a human version: the neighbor who knows whose car stayed out all night and makes sure everyone else knows too. Most of us play that part now and then, passing on what we overheard as if it were the weather. A mockingbird on the fence can make you notice what you carry from one yard to the next, and whether it was yours to carry.
Depending on how you saw it
Flashing its wings on the lawn
Mockingbirds often hop across a lawn and suddenly lift their wings in jerky steps, showing the white patches. Scientists still debate whether it startles insects or signals to rivals. Which habit of yours makes sense to you but looks odd to everyone watching?
Nesting in a shrub by the house
Old lore held that a mockingbird building its nest and staying in the trees of a yard showed a contented family in the house. Mockingbirds often choose dense shrubs right beside doors and porches. What do the creatures that choose to live near you say about your home?
Guarding a berry bush in winter
In fall and winter a mockingbird often claims a single holly or fruiting shrub and drives off the robins and waxwings that come near it. One good food source is worth defending. Which one resource in your week do you keep for yourself, and does it still need defending?
Why it happens in nature
The northern mockingbird is a gray, long-tailed bird with white wing patches, common in towns and suburbs across the southern and eastern United States. In a 2009 study, nesting mockingbirds learned within days to recognize a person who had approached their nest and reacted to that person sooner each time, while ignoring others. In winter many defend a fruiting shrub as a private food supply.
What folk beliefs say
African American lore (American South)
In African American lore of the American South, a 1903 collection says, the mockingbird was credited with supernatural wisdom and an understanding of human speech, and was nicknamed the tattle bird or meddle bird, a meddlesome bearer of bad news.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 663. View the page
To reflect on
What news about other people have you passed along lately, and was it yours to share?