On the night
we arrived at my son's home in Fremont, California, about 30 minutes before the
midnight hour, we were just a bit pooped, to say the least, after a 5-hour-plus
flight from Honolulu.
Of course, it
was only 8:30 p.m. in Hawaii, so it wasn't going to be easy to just shower
and fall asleep. In fact, by the time I got unpacked, showered, and settled
into bed, it was 1 a.m. I crossword-puzzled for about 15 minutes, then turned
off the light, lay my head upon my pillow, pulled the covers up to my
neck, and closed my eyes.
They popped
right open again because it was at that very moment that a bird started
singing. At first, I thought it was seven or eight different birds, all singing
different songs. But wait. I thought birds slept at night. Then, listening
carefully, I realized it was just one bird ... ONE bird ... making all
that racket.
It had to be a Northern Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos).
I would have
gone out to take a picture of that obnoxious, rude and inconsiderate bird, but
remember, it was really dark outside. In fact, I thought of shooting it with a
BB gun, but even THAT wouldn't have worked. In the dark, I probably
would have shot out somebody's window.
So I did the
only thing I could do – I listened to that damned bird from hell until 3 a.m.,
when I mercifully fell asleep. My daughter-in-law said she heard it when she
headed out to work the next morning at about 6 a.m. The bird was singing all
night long. Apparently, according to a naturalist's blog I read the next day,
it was defending its territory ... no matter that it was night, when he should
have been sleeping.
I thought about waking the wife so she could share the
cacophony, but ... a tired, unhappy wife at 3 a.m. makes for a tired, unhappy
life for at least the next couple of days.
2 comments:
:) So sorry about the mockingbird. (Did he sing all day also?) I'm especially glad you didn't wake Diana to share your misery!! I sometimes feel like waking hubby when he snores and keeps me awake! Why should he sleep when he's preventing my sleep?! :)Common sense trumps revenge, I guess.
LOL! Yep, he sang the next day as well. But thankfully, he stopped his night singing.
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