While hunting butterflies at the National Butterfly Center, I came around the end of one of the taller plantings to find another butterfly watcher sitting quietly on a bench about 20 feet away. Nothing odd in that. But between he and I, this Northern Mockingbird bird sat out in the sun, just sitting, not 10 feet from either of us. I had to zoom back to normal 1200mm equivalent from my butterfly working 1800mm to get the whole bird in the frame. Even stranger, the stranger and I stood talking about the bird for several moments before I walked on. The bird was still there, sunning itself, apparently unconcerned about what we humans were up to in its garden.

Granted, if it lives in the NBC garden, it sees a lot of humans, especially at the height of butterfly season in the late fall, so it is pretty used to us…but still, that is a pretty bold behavior for a Mocker.

Canon SX50HS in Program with – 1/3rd EV exposure compensation and iContrast. 1200mm equivalent field of view. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.

And the bird was still sitting there when I walked away.