Disclaimer–I am not a birder or bird watcher or any kind of expert on birds at all. I have been known to feed them and watch their birdbrain antics and can even identify a few of them, one of which is the Cardinal.
When we moved to Tupelo, I was hearing Cardinals but was not seeing any of them. Didn’t think much about it, just figured they were up in the big trees some wheres. The Cardinals racket didn’t sound quite right tho. So I wondered out loud to sis, “Do you think birds have a southern accent too?” She just laughed at me or rolled her eyes or some such response!
Then one day, the light bulb clicked on. There was a strange bird on the crape myrtle making Cardinal noises, but just a hair off. I seems that we have a lot of Mockingbirds in Tupelo. And yes, they do Cardinal tunes…………but is it their southern accent that makes them sound a little off or do the Cardinals in Tupelo do indeed have a southern accent? Well, I still don’t have the answer to that question. My goodness, the things that keep me awake at night.