from: http://www.azcentral.com/news/columns/articles/0410clay10.html

Don't mock need for night music

Apr. 10, 2003 12:00 AM

Someone has written to ask about the birds that sing at night. Someone always writes at this time of year to ask about the birds that sing at night. I would be surprised if someone didn't write to ask about the birds that sing at night.

The birds that sing at night are, of course, mockingbirds, just as they were when someone wrote to ask about them last year and the year before and so on.

Specifically, they are unmated male mockingbirds, and they are singing in hopes of impressing mockingbird babes. You would think that the mockingbird babes would rather have their sleep than be kept up all night by warbling mockingbird lotharios, but there you have it.

Why they sing at night and most other birds don't is something I don't know. Maybe it's because they don't have to compete for airtime at night. I don't know.

I like mockingbirds a lot, and I like waking up in the night and hearing them sing. Mockingbirds strike me as being about halfway nuts, what with the singing at night and dive-bombing cats and all.

If you or I walked around the neighborhood at 4 a.m. singing at the top of our lungs in hopes of attracting a mate, we'd probably get arrested, but mockingbirds get away with it. They are what you call audacious.

Did you know Thomas Jefferson kept a pet mockingbird in his office at the White House? He trained it to take food from his lips, which is carrying the mockingbird thing a bit too far, if you ask me, but there you have it.

It seems doubtful, however, that Thomas Jefferson kept an extra refrigerator in his garage, which is today's subject.

Here in the Valley, does it make sense to put a spare refrigerator in a garage, where during the summer it is 90 or 100 degrees for months? Would it run all the time and wear out in no time?

I suppose if you really need an extra refrigerator and you don't have anywhere else to put it, it makes sense. However, a refrigerator in your garage is going to cost you.

According to my pals at the Salt River Project, where, as you might expect, they know a lot about electricity, it's going to cost you around $40 a month to keep a refrigerator in your garage. That seems like kind of a lot to me.

If you absolutely must keep an extra refrigerator in your garage, try to give it some kind of ventilation and be extra careful to keep the coils clean, since garages tend to be dusty places.

Personally, I think it would make more sense to keep a mockingbird in your garage, but I'm pretty sure that would be illegal, and besides it would drive the cat crazy.

Reach Thompson at clay.thompson@arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-8612.