Dobby's new mama
Thursday, 4:57 pm
Jul
31
2008
Dobby has a new mother. Sort of.
For the summer, I’ve placed both Dobby and Lucy next to the sliding glass doors so that they can enjoy a bit of sunshine and fresh air. When the door is open, their chirps and songs apparently carry quite well to the outside. And, recently, this has attracted the attention of a female mockingbird.
Over the last couple of days, the mother mockingbird has taken up a fairly steady residence on my deck railing. She runs back and forth, fluffing her feathers and hollering into the house. On a couple of occasions, she has come right up to the screen door to do her hollering. And every time she hollers, Dobby chirps back at her, which, in turn, sends mama mockingbird into spasms of distress. Mama mockingbird, does the broken wing routine and tries to encourage me to get away from her baby. Oddly enough, however, Lucy’s chirps don’t seem to elicit much response from the mockingbird. Just Dobby’s.
I feel terribly sorry for the mockingbird because she has been utterly frantic for the last couple of days, never going more than a few yards from the deck.
At first, I thought perhaps she had lost one of her own babies somewhere around the deck. I’ve gone out to scour the area, just to make sure. But there are no signs of a mockingbird baby anywhere.
Earlier this afternoon, it became absolutely clear that she is consumed by concerns over Dobby’s safety. Abbie (the cat) and Dobby are friends. Abbie likes to curl up by Dobby’s cage and, quite often, they will press nose to beak through the cage bars. Dobby is very fond of Abbie, as well. The mockingbird doesn’t approve. This afternoon, while Abbie and Dobby were communing, the mockingbird flew off the deck railing and dive bombed the screen door. She screamed at Abbie and scared the poor cat out of her wits. Abbie raced off upstairs to hide under the bed. Mama mockingbird resumed her post on the deck railing, running back and forth, fussing and ruffling her feathers and flapping her wings.
It is one of the strangest things I have ever seen.