Gray Catbird

If youre convinced youll never be able to learn bird calls, start with the Gray Catbird. Once youve heard its catty mew you wont forget it. Follow the sound into thickets and vine tangles and youll be rewarded by a somber gray bird with a black cap and bright rusty feathers under the tail. Gray Catbirds are relatives of mockingbirds and thrashers, and they share that groups vocal abilities, copying the sounds of other species and stringing them together to make their own song.

Size & Shape
A medium-sized, slender songbird with a long, rounded, black tail and a narrow, straight bill. Catbirds are fairly long legged and have broad, rounded wings.

Color Pattern
Catbirds give the impression of being entirely slaty gray. With a closer look youll see a small black cap, blackish tail, and a rich rufous-brown patch under the tail.

Behavior
Catbirds are secretive but energetic, hopping and fluttering from branch to branch through tangles of vegetation. Singing males sit atop shrubs and small trees. Catbirds are reluctant to fly across open areas, preferring quick, low flights over vegetation.

Habitat
Look for Gray Catbirds in dense tangles of shrubs, small trees, and vines, along forest edges, streamside thickets, old fields, and fencerows.

Cool Facts
•The Gray Catbirds long song may last for up to 10 minutes.

•The male Gray Catbird uses his loud song to proclaim his territory. He uses a softer version of the song when near the nest or when a bird intrudes on his territory. The female may sing the quiet song back to the male.

•The Gray Catbird belongs to the genus Dumetella, which means small thicket. And thats exactly where you should go look for this little skulker.

•The oldest known Gray Catbird lived to be 17 years 11 months old.

Habitat

Open WoodlandGray Catbirds live amid dense shrubs, vine tangles, and thickets of young trees in both summer and winter. Human disturbance and development often create these habitats in the form of clearings, roadsides, fencerows, abandoned farmland, and residential areas. On tropical wintering grounds catbirds spend more time in forests than they do while in North America.

Food

Insects
In summer, Gray Catbirds eat mainly ants, beetles, grasshoppers, midges, caterpillars, and moths. When fruits are available they also eat holly berries, cherries, elderberries, poison ivy, greenbrier, bay, and blackberries. They are sometimes garden pests, eating or damaging raspberries, cherries, grapes, and strawberries.

Nesting
Nesting Facts
Clutch Size
16 eggs
Egg Length
0.91 in
2.22.6 cm
Egg Width
0.50.6 in
1.21.6 cm
Incubation Period
1215 days
Nestling Period
1011 days
Egg Description
Turquoise green, sometimes with small red spots.

Condition at Hatching
Naked, eyes closed, helpless and partially covered with dark brown or gray down.Nest Description
Females build the nests, with males sometimes supplying materials. Nests take 5-6 days to build. The final product is a bulky, open cup made of twigs, straw, bark, mud, and sometimes pieces of trash. It has a finely woven inner lining of grass, hair, rootlets, and pine needles. Finished nests are about 5.5 inches across and 2 inches deep.

Nest Placement
Shrub

Catbirds usually build nests on horizontal branches hidden at the center of dense shrubs, small trees, or in vines, including dogwood, hawthorn, cherry, rose, elderberry, grape, honeysuckle, and blackberry. Nests are typically around 4 feet off the ground, but may be on the ground or as high as 60 feet.

Behavior

Ground Forager
You will find catbirds hopping through low vegetation or flying short distances at a time, just above the surrounding vegetation. Male catbirds are territorial during spring and summer, singing from prominent perches and chasing away intruders including several other species of birds. Males and females defend their own territories during winter, a time when territoriality is uncommon in many species.