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

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."