We have a lovely Burning Bush hedge in front of the house. Right now it’s going through a huge growth spurt (all this lovely rain!) and is threatening to take over the windows. It’s getting harder and harder each day to see out over it. The hedge is also a bird refuge. All manner of birds can be found throughout the day taking advantage of its protective branches. This hedge also happens to be directly under our second-story bedroom window. This hedge also harbors a mockingbird.

Each morning, promptly at four a.m., the concert begins. It starts out slowly and gains momentum. First a little chirp, then a few more, and then the full-blown repertoire begins. Really now, it’s all very pretty but it’s too darned early, Mr. Mockingbird!

The first morning this happened, it woke me up and I could not get back to sleep. Every time I’d drift back off into a light slumber, he’d wake me up again with his loud, clear notes. shut up! I silently screamed. When the concert began the next morning I drug myself out of bed, closed the window, and turned on the ceiling fan to help drown out the chatter. It is oh so annoying to be wakened before your time. Very annoying indeed. It’s enough to make you want to throttle the damn bird.

This morning, right on cue, I heard the first chirp and looked at the alarm clock. Yup, 4:07. I closed my eyes and went right back to sleep. Instead of keeping me awake, his singing has acted like a lullaby. 6:15 and I’m more or less awake. I lie in bed and see how many of his mimicking songs I can identify. This particular mockingbird is not the world’s best mimic. His notes get a bit garbled and hurried, but I can still pick out the goldfinch, the titmouse, and the wood thrush. Three repeats and the song changes. I have to giggle silently to myself (or the dogs will hear me and that will be the end of my pretending to still be asleep) because the songs and the way they change sounds a bit silly. Am I beginning to like this pesky bird?

In the two years that we’ve lived here we have never had a mockingbird around. Nor have we had any early morning songsters living in the hedge. Even though he’s as annoying as can be when he starts up at that hour of the morning, I guess he can stay. That is, unless he decides the hedge isn’t such a great place to live once Rick gets the hedge clippers out and gives the hedge a proper and much needed haircut. We shall see. If he decides to leave I might just miss him.

Makes me feel right at home. You know something’s wrong—or not right, especially on a nice day if you don’t hear any birds. By mid summer our forsynthia starts shooting out all over and my dad and I’ll use the hedge trimmer for a nice, somewhat straight edge. Until then we use the clippers for a more natural and spaced trim. I don’t like cutting them much though. We have some kind of bird nest in there this year, as we do many years.

it sounds delicious!  but i guess, not so much at 4 am….

i was once kept awake much of the night in Perpignan by a nightingale - I’d never heard one before, it was wonderful.
But even that could get old I guess, night after night

Oh I know what you mean about mockingbirds!  A few years back we had one that would sit on the phone line behind our bedroom window and imitate car alarms before the sun was up. Pretty startling the first time we heard it, because there was no space for a car to be parked anywhere near our bedroom (the fence was 3’ from the window, and was backed up against a building) and we couldn’t figure out what the heck was going on.

Luke, hopefully this bird doesn’t have a nest in the hedge. We’ll be sure to look first; clip later!

Letty, I’ve never heard a nightingale before. Anything gets old that keeps you from your sleep!

Susan t-o; ugh, how annoyingly funny! Talk about a smart bird! Very amusing (but not) !

We once had a yellow-shafted Northern Flicker pair nest in a dead tree on bit of land between the neighbour’s property and ours. 
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Northern_Flicker_dtl.html
Northern Flicker pair became proud parents to several youngsters. The babies would begin to SCREECH at 4:00am each morning and continued non-stop as the parents franticly flew back and forth with breakfast, lunch, supper and several snacks. One day the entire Flicker family flew the nest for parts unknown. The next day my neighbour took a chainsaw to the tree…