Our local mockingbirds also speak fluent chainsaw, weedeater and tractor, and one has even started imitating the hammering sounds of our local woodpeckers.

We have a few different species, including pileated woodpeckers and flickers, so I always check to see who it is, and was dumbfounded one day to realize that the sound was coming from the mockingbird.

Definitely not what I was expecting.

We had a neighbor in Florida, who was having starter problems with his car, and one of our mockingbirds there started perfectly imitating his car refusing to start, which was pretty hilarious.

What amazed me the most about mockingbirds, however, is that we were a short block away from Lake Seminole, so we had a lot of ospreys and bald eagles in the immediate neighborhood, and the mockingbirds would regularly chase the MUCH bigger raptors out of their nesting areas.

Bald eagles and ospreys both have wingspans approaching six feet - mockingbirds, when protecting their young, are absolutely fearless.

They even chased away red-tailed hawks, which sometimes prey on song birds, including mockingbirds.