Mockingbirds are known for their beautiful songs, territorial displays, and ability to mimic sounds. But when it comes to their love lives, do these backyard birds stay loyal and mate for life?
If you’re short on time, here’s a quick answer to your question: While mockingbirds may re-pair with a past mate during subsequent nesting seasons, they do not form permanent lifelong bonds. Mockingbird pairs only stay together long enough to mate and raise a brood of chicks each breeding season.
In this detailed guide, we will dive into mockingbird pair bonding, reproduction, and mating behaviors to unravel the truth about these musically-inclined birds.
The Mockingbird Mating Season
Courtship Displays and Pair Bonding
The mockingbird mating season generally begins in early spring. Male mockingbirds are known for performing elaborate courtship displays to attract a mate. They will sing beautiful and complex songs, sometimes singing through the night under a full moon.
In addition to singing, males will chase each other while flashing their white wing patches and performing aerial acrobatics to demonstrate their flying prowess. If a female shows interest, the male will pursue her while alternating between singing softly and aggressively waving his wings.
Once paired, mockingbird couples tend to be monogamous and mate for life.
Nest Building and Egg Laying
After choosing a mate, the female mockingbird will begin building a nest while the male stands guard. The nest is cup-shaped and constructed of twigs, grass, leaves and sometimes even trash like foil or plastic, all woven together with spider silk.
Mockingbirds are prolific nest builders and may construct up to six nests per season, even while incubation is underway! The female lays between 2-6 light blue or greenish-blue eggs speckled with reddish-brown spots. She can lay eggs every 1-2 days until the clutch is complete.
Mockingbirds are known to be protective parents and may dive bomb or attack predators that get too close to their nest.
Incubation and Raising the Chicks
The female mockingbird incubates the eggs for 11-14 days while the male brings her food. Both parents feed the hatchlings a diet of insects, berries and seeds multiple times per hour. In an amazing display of devotion, the male may continue courting the female by singing to her while she incubates!
The chicks fledge the nest at 10-14 days old but are fed by their parents for another 2-3 weeks as they learn to fly and become independent. With up to 3 clutches per year, mockingbirds certainly keep busy during mating and nesting season!
Do the Same Mockingbirds Reunite?
There is some evidence that individual Northern Mockingbirds may reunite with previous mates if conditions permit. Factors like nesting territory quality and past breeding success likely influence whether pairs reunite.
Territory Might Influence Recoupling
High-quality nesting territories, with abundant food sources and nesting sites, are limited. If a mated pair successfully raises multiple broods in one summer, they may seek to reunite the next spring to reuse a prime location.
Studies have shown mockingbird pairs exhibit high site fidelity, returning to the same neighborhoods or blocks year after year.
Research on mockingbirds in urban parks found that while only 25% of males paired with the same female as the previous year, many reunited with previous partners once establishing their territories (Griffith et al. 2002).
For migratory mockingbird populations, recombining with a past mate likely depends on both birds surviving migration and resettling close enough for recognition.
Past Success Could Lead to Reunions
If a mated pair succeeds in raising multiple healthy broods in one season, the birds may have an incentive to reunite. Familiarity between recurring partners could lead to earlier egg laying and a larger total clutch.
One analysis found mockingbird pairs who had previously nested together started the next season’s first clutch 3-4 days earlier on average.
| Experienced pair | First clutch initiated April 16 |
| New pair | First clutch initiated April 19-20 |
Earlier breeding leads to more time for subsequent nestings, with seasoned pairs routinely raising three broods compared to new pairs’ two. Therefore, re-establishing a bond with a seasoned partner at the start of breeding season is likely advantageous.
Reasons Mockingbirds Don’t Mate for Life
Singing Males Seek Multiple Partners
The male mockingbird is known for its complex and melodious song patterns, which serve to attract female mates. Research shows that the adult male mockingbird may mate with several different females in a single breeding season (Audubon).
This behavior stems from the fact that the male mockingbird wants to pass on his genes as widely as possible. After breeding, the male mockingbird provides no parental care and departs to seek more mates.
Females Care for the Young Alone
The female mockingbird takes sole responsibility for building the nest, incubating the 3 to 5 eggs, and caring for the hatchlings when they arrive. She receives no support from the father mockingbird in raising the brood.
With the male uninvolved in the rearing of offspring, the mockingbird breeding pair does not form a lasting bond. Essentially, the female mockingbird goes it alone when it comes to nurturing the next generation.
High Mortality Rate Influences Behavior
In the wild, about 70% of mockingbird fledglings do not reach adulthood. This high mortality rate means that mating for life would not be an evolutionarily advantageous strategy for the mockingbird. Instead, both male and female mockingbirds seek to produce as many surviving offspring as possible each breeding season.
With future breeding chances uncertain, long-term pair bonding does not occur.
Statistical data shows the average mockingbird lives just 2-3 years in the wild. Thus, their behavior and mating habits are oriented toward shorter-term reproductive success and passing on genes through quantity versus quality of partnerships.
Other Backyard Birds That Mate for Life
Lovebirds
Lovebirds are small, colorful parrots that originate from Africa. True to their name, lovebirds form strong, monogamous bonds with their mates that can last their entire lifetime. In fact, lovebirds get so attached to their partners that they may even become depressed if separated.
These affectionate birds enjoy preening each other’s feathers and often perch close together while sleeping. Wild lovebirds typically find a mate by their first year. They choose cavities in trees or cliffs for nesting and may reuse the same nesting site for multiple breeding seasons.
The female typically lays three to five eggs at a time. Both parents incubate the eggs and care for the young. Overall, lovebirds make loyal and loving partners.
Bald Eagles
With an impressive wingspan averaging over 6 feet, bald eagles are revered as a national symbol of the United States. These powerful raptors form permanent bonds with their mates, often returning to the same nesting territory year after year.
Though difficult to observe, eagles engage in spectacular aerial displays and close bonding rituals to reinforce their pair bond. Bald eagles breed from February through July, and the female typically lays one to three eggs. Both parents share incubation duties, and the young fledge at 10-12 weeks.
Bald eagle pairs collaborate to defend their nesting territory and hunt prey cooperatively. Their dedication as mates is vividly illustrated by stories of bald eagles stubbornly continuing to incubate dead mates or returning to nest with their mate’s remains.
Albatrosses
Known for their immense wingspans allowing them to soar for hours without rest, albatrosses are one of Earth’s most far-traveling birds. These remarkable seabirds live most of their lives at sea, returning to remote islands to breed.
Their strong mating instincts are reflected in elaborate pairing rituals that can involve singing, dancing, bill-tapping, and mutual preening. Established pairs engage in visible affectionate behaviors including pressing their bills together in a kiss-like fashion.
Albatrosses demonstrate fierce loyalty by almost always rejection advances from outsiders. Mated pairs stay faithful for life, often reuniting at the same nest site annually. They synchronize their breeding cycles to raise a single egg, taking turns incubating for over two months and later feeding the chick.
The parents work together until the offspring fledges. Albatross couples defending nesting territories and rearing young represent a profound lifetime partnership.
Conclusion
While mockingbirds might not have lifelong bonds, we can still admire their spirited songs, dedication to their chicks, and even their occasional year-to-year reunions. Their antics bring excitement to backyards and neighborhoods every spring.
Though mockingbird pairs eventually part ways after breeding season, we can still enjoy their melodies and family ties, however temporary. And we can look forward to their exuberant displays year after year as they flash their white-patched wings in territorial shows or dive bomb encroaching predators.
