Joann Merritt's Essays

Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush
(And other Nursery Rhymes and Games)
June, 1984

Here we go round the mulberry bush,
The mulberry bush, the mulberry bush,
Here we go round the mulberry bush,
So early in the morning.

When I was a child I sang and played this game(I’ll bet you did, too!) and now that I have matured into a MIDNAT and the bush has matured into a tree I still play a variation of this game. The new verse is: “This is the way we watch the birds so early in the morning..

Several years ago numerous birds came to eat mulberries from the big tree in our backyard and as soon as the berries began ripening I started keeping a list of birds seen in the tree. In the spring of 1981 I had 21 species, including Black-headed and Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, Pine Siskin, Northern (Bullock’s) Oriole, Western Tanager, American Redstart, Warbling Vireo, Cardinal and Verdin.

Since then (I’ll borrow John Cys’ expression) “Other noteworthy birds observed were”): Great-crested Flycatcher, White-winged Dove, Canada and Tennessee Warblers, Philadelphia, Solitary and Red-eyed Vireos and Lazuli Bunting, House Wren, Gray Catbird, Western Kingbird, Eastern Kingbird, Swainson’s Thrush, Townsend’s Solitaire and the latest bird, Blackpoll Warbler.

On Big Count Day, Saturday May 5th, 1984 a dozen or so Midnats joined Don and me in the backyard to eat lunch, tally the birds seen that morning by the various parties, and watch birds in the tree. Ted and George came, with George playing his own game of “One shoe off and one shoe on” and both saw the grosbeaks and the Catbird.

Jerry, Barbara and Sara, first time participants in Big Day Count “Followed the Leaders” Frances and Rose Marie. They played “Jack-in-the-box” as they jumped up to see a good bird someone had found in the mulberry tree and then sat back down to eat another bite.

“A diller, a dollar, a ten o’clock scholar, what makes you come so soon? You used to come at ten o’clock but now you come at noon.” Allen and Bill had already eaten when they arrived so they acted as spotters finding good birds for us. Jim and Katherine came late in the day in time to see an Indigo Bunting.

Not even one Midnat would join John and Don Hunter in their game of “All work & no play”. (We would have added several more species to our total of 126 if they had been able to join us.)

Sunday, May 6th, “There was an old woman who lived in a shoe, she had so many children (and grandchildren) she didn’t know what to do”, but I did manage to see one new arrival in the tree, a Western Tanager.

Monday, May 7th, I had fifty-five species of birds on our two acres with many of that number eating mulberries, even the tiny Verdin. May 21st a Roadrunner flew up into the tree and ate either a berry or a bug!

Now most of the birds are gone and the games are over, but next year everybody come and we’ll “Go round the mulberry bush” again. Maybe we can add to my list of sixty-six species.

I have never seen a bluebird in the Mulberry Tree, but I am certain the Bluebird of Happiness has been there.