Something is up with one of my Mockingbird neighbors...

[capri0mni]

It's just the start of Autumn. It's also still dark enough outside that the streetlamps are still on.

And yet, I hear a mockingbird, somewhere close -- sounds like he (?) might be in the holly tree just outside my office window.*

He's "Scrolling through" his repertoire of different bird calls -- loudly. But, unlike the "Let me show off my skills & endurance" songs that mockingbirds perform in the spring, this one has no quality that I would consider "Musical." And besides, I can't remember ever hearing any mockingbird call like that after early June.

... And, in the time it's taken me to type this, it's gone quiet, and the streetlamps have gone out.

Still, I hope everything's okay for my feathery neighbors.

*The berries, are full size, now. And are turning a darker shade of green. Before long, they'll be truly red, and ready for their Christmas card closeups.

Comments

[redsixwing]

>>The early mockingbird gets the earworm?

BAHAHAHA. YES.

They're pretty awesome. I like your bowerbird comparison - it seems entirely apt. (I heard one once mimic a hawk, trying to frighten away another bird that was harassing it. If I recall correctly, it worked.)

[capri0mni]

And one afternoon, early in the spring, I heard some crows cawing while in flight, and I looked around to see if I could match bird to sound. I quickly spotted a pair of crows, but they were perched on a streetlamp, and were not the source of the sound... So I looked around some more, and saw the pair of mockingbirds swooping in from some distance, and that was where the sound was coming from.

...Now, the usual explanation for animal calls is that they're just sounds propelled by emotion: fear, anger, pain, sexual arousal, etc.

But, these were mockingbirds targeting crows with their actions, and their "vocalizations" just happened to sound like crows? No way do I buy that it was anything but deliberate.

They were tailoring their message to their audience.

That's language. Period.

[redsixwing]

Oh, that's just cool!

[capri0mni]

I certainly think so!

It's one of the reasons I've become increasingly frustrated with the perennial popular science question: "What makes us human?" Every time we're told that we have this special magical power attribute that makes us unique among all other life: our ability to reason, learn, make tools, create art (Bower birds), use language, feel emotions, have a sense of justice, plan for the future, remember the past, have altruistic motives, etc. (etc. ... etc. ...), it turns out we're not so unique after all.

So why are we so obsessed with having that One Special Gift that puts us On Top?

Humans == the Mary-Sue Species.

....and rant-mode slightly on.

[redsixwing]

Guh, yes. It's not like we're even the only hominid! Nonono, we just have to be SUPER SPECIAL and, like, CHOSEN BY GOD. Because obvs.

It was pretty entertaining watching people get upset about Homo naledi because of placing their dead together, but every time someone posts an article like that, I'll be over here rubbing my hands together and cackling as their sense of superiority falls apart.

Re: ....and rant-mode slightly more on.

[capri0mni]

Well, what really angers me about that question is that the way it's framed obscures what it is we're really asking, which is:

"What unique attribute can we lay claim to that we can use to justify the exploitation of life on this planet?" or, the more slogan-y version: "Whence the might that gives us the right?"

And there will likely always be people who refuse to accept the ultimate (probable) answer: "There is none!"

And also, reducing the "True essence of what makes us fully human" to list of check-boxes (whether that includes 'walks upright,' 'uses language," "can do long division," etc.) means that there will always members of our own species that don't have that "magic pixie dust." And that gives society license to treat them as subhuman...

Re: ....and rant-mode slightly more on.

[redsixwing]

That's a really good point, and one I'll add to my usual set of arguments against Doing That (the ones that center around how we treat our neighboring species).

Re: ....and rant-mode slightly more on.

[capri0mni]

Hooray! This is really personal for me, because I have C.P., and don't walk erect (When I walk at all, it's with crutches, as a quadruped ;-)). And if it weren't for my mother resisting the hospital psychologist, when I was 2 (in 1966), I would very likely have ended up institutionalized as "Severely Retarded" because that was the psychologist's default assumption because my Brain is Different Than Normal (And even if I were retarded, I would not have deserved to be warehoused for life).

So I'm chortling with particular glee over the whole: "But -- but -- but -- how could they be smart enough to create such a difficult burial?! Their brains were so small!"

Yeah -- it's what I've been saying all along; There's more to understanding stuff than the hardware. Deal with it.

Re: ....and rant-mode slightly more on.

[redsixwing]

Whoof. Yeah, that's personal all right.

It's hard even to define software well by giving out a checklist of Things It Should Do - there's always fiddly bits and things that don't quite match, and "what this software should do" is quite a bit easier to define than "which beings do we need to care about," unless you take the obvious-and-very-difficult answer of "all of them, bro."

(And, I don't actually think anybody deserves to be warehoused for life, but that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish.)

Ye-e-s. I'm filing this right in there with "how could [ancient H. sapiens] have built things we, the modern-and-obviously-superior DON'T UNDERSTAND?"

With an extra nose-tweak because H. naledi has the gall to not be H. sapiens. Moo hoo ha ha.

Re: ....and rant-mode slightly more on.

[capri0mni]

With an extra nose-tweak because H. naledi has the gall to not be H. sapiens.

Seriously!!

Like I said, upthread: We are the Mary-Sues of planet Earth:

The newcomers, who insist we're more important than everyone who came before, and everyone loves us (except the EVIL ones, who hate us) just because we're the extra-special sparkly snowflakes.

You want to know what sets humans apart from everything else? My guess is that: we're (probably) the only ones who feel the need to name ourselves "Sapiens."