We are still recovering from last week's blanket of sleet-covered snow. It is slowly melting, which of course mainly serves to make it more slippery. Do not go uphill, my friends, or downhill. You will fall. Stay on level ground.
The sleet brought a Northern Mockingbird to my suet feeder in the backyard. I have never heard of a mockingbird eating suet - they are mainly fruit eaters - but hard times call for desperate measures. I won't complain, since the mocker (mimus polyglottos) is my totem animal.
Choosing a totem animal isn't as New Agey as it may sound. It only involves looking into the natural world and finding a suitable mirror. There's no magic involved; it is as inocuous as those silly personality tests that everyone falls over themselves to administer and take.
I chose the mockingbird relatively late in life. Choosing young is wrong-headed, I believe, as you will invariably choose something silly that you will regret later. I don't want to give examples of this for fear of offending friends with bad totems, but you can get the general idea of bad totem choices at any yard sale/flea market. People, we can't all be tigers and pandas and elephants.
Anyway, mimus polyglottos came to me while watching their phenomenal territorial displays last spring and summer. They are a rather plain gray bird with white flashes on their wings and tail which are prominently diplayed when they fly. Plus, they never fly straight; they are always doing crazy turns and dipsy-dos. "Conspicuous in flight," is how Peterson describes it. There is also the singing. Listening to a mockingbird sing is like listening to an entire CD of birdsongs on continuous shuffle. Not only do they mimic other birds, they will also pick up on other sounds from their environment like a crying baby or a barking dog. They sing for hours, repeating an encyclopedia of sounds, in patterns of three, over and over again. They sing at night when the moon is full. They sing first thing in the morning. They sing at noon. They are tireless.
The particular bird in my yard has one flaw, indicative of his kind. Mockingbirds are very territorial when it comes to food. They have been known to attack dogs, cats, snakes, and even humans on occasion,dive-bombing them from the clear blue sky. Since he (it may be a she - genders are identical) staked his claim last week, he spends all day running off any other bird that comes within his territory. He particularly hates woodpeckers, but I have seen him go after a hawk. There was a cute little Carolina Wren that I used to see almost daily and now it is gone. Maybe the sleet did it in, but I imagine that it simply got fed up with fighting for a turn at the feeder. This constant fighting has greatly decreased my backyard avian diversity, which is a drag.
It is also a drag to look into the mirror of your self-chosen animal totem and realize that you are a selfish prick.
