The mockingbird is known for...
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The mockingbird is known for its joyous song. Mockingbirds sing long and strong, almost twenty hours a day, for most of the year. It's got a pretty song of its own, but that's not enough for the mockingbird. It will sing the songs of as many as 35 other birds, eight to ten different tunes a minute. People who study birds report one mockingbird that changed its tune 137 times in ten minutes, but there were only 43 different ones. Gives new depth to the phrase "bird brain." We know that birds sing for mating and territorial reasons. But we like to think that birds sing because they are happy. We say, "I'm so happy, I could sing like a bird!" Or someone could be "happy as a lark." When you get right down to it, happiness such as we attribute to the mockingbird is only natural. It's the way God intended for us to be -- singing a new song all the time, smiling and laughing and overwhelmed with the joy of life! He gave us some natural clues, too. Did you know that when you smile, your body releases chemicals that make you feel good? So the more you smile, the more you feel like smiling. And the healing power of laughter has been well known since Solomon -- that's about 1000 B.C. -- who said, in Proverbs 17:23, "A cheerful heart is a good medicine, but a downcast spirit dries up the bones." Cheerful people resist diseases better than glum ones. In other words, it's the surly bird that gets the germ! -- Mosley
