Mockingjay?
Nikon D90
Nikkor 70-300mm - f/4.5-5.6 G AF-S lens
I am not a big fan of The Hunger Games, but I swear that I heard the theme Mockingjay call the other day.
At first, I thought my mind was playing a trick on me, but later that day, I heard it several more times again. Filled with curiosity, I started to look for a piece of information about what the Hell Mockingjay is. And guess what? The Mockingjay bird is fiction! Then again, I heard its call! How is it even possible? So I went on a quest to figure this out.
It turns out that in Suzanne Collins’ book, the Mockingjay bird resulted from a failed government (fictional government of Panem, of course) experiment to create a new breed of bird that would spy on the enemies of the Capitol. The created breed Jabberjays consisted of only male birds and could memorize and repeat entire human conversations. It was the perfect tool to spy and secretly gather information from the rebels. However, when people of the Districts realized that the birds transmitted their private conversations, they used the Jabberjays to feed lies to the Capitol. When the Capitol discovered that all the information received from the birds was no longer accurate, they closed the laboratories. They released the entire population of Jabberjays into the wild, expecting the whole breed would vanish simply because of the lack of females. And so it eventually did, but not before they passed their genetic code to their offspring. No one expected them to be able to reproduce, but they found suitable mates in the Mockingbird females. The resulting offspring has been named Mockingjay, and although it had lost the ability to memorize words, it became remarkably good at mimicking sounds. [source: wikia]
This fictional species plays a symbolic role in The Hunger Games trilogy. Yet, its fascinating mimicry trait is genuine and exists in the wild, just like the Mockingbird mentioned earlier.
You and I know that Jabberjays and Mockingjay are not real, but what is the theme Mockingjay call I keep hearing? While searching for Mockingbird sounds, I found it interesting that Mockingbirds can mimic many different sounds, such as car alarms, cats meowing, crickets chirping, and a lot more. Rather than singing their own songs, Northern Mockingbirds learn and repeat the songs of other species. An individual can learn up to 200 songs during their lifetime. Here is an excellent example of how amazing the Mockingbird is:
[Audio cut from YouTube Video]
Suppose you are familiar with any bird sounds. In that case, the Mockingbird repeats the songs of the Carolina Wren, Northern Flicker, American Robin, House Sparrow, Tufted Titmouse, Blue Jay, Red-bellied Woodpecker, maybe Bluebird, White-breasted Nuthatch. You can hear crickets, frogs, and car alarms. Let me know if I need to correct something or if you have recognized other sounds.
Yet, I haven't found the desired fictional Mockingjay song sung by Mockingbird. On the other hand, maybe this one particular bird could learn The Hunger Games sounds, and now it is playing tricks on people. Nah. The Northern Mockingbirds rarely visit peoples' backyards, so it should be someone more local. As a result, after searching Virginia aria birds, I discovered the White-throated sparrow's songs, which sound very similar to Mockingjay's calls.
Some facts:
Johann Friedrich Gmelin, a German naturalist, botanist, and entomologist, first described the White-throated Sparrow in 1789.
The White-throated Sparrow comes in two color forms: white-crowned and tan-crowned. The two forms are genetically determined and persist because individuals almost always mate with a bird of the opposite morph. Males of both color types prefer females with white stripes, but both kinds of females prefer tan-striped males. White-striped birds are more aggressive than tan-striped ones, and white-striped females may be able to out-compete their tan-striped sisters for tan-striped males.
White-throated Sparrows are loyal to their winter territories and likely to return to the same areas yearly.
