Bird Mimics

Last spring I saw 2 of the area birds noted for their mimicry of other sounds. The 1st 1 is a bird that commonly seen and even more often heard; if you hear what sounds like various birds, frogs, crickets, and/or an ambulance coming sequentially from a tree, there's a pretty good chance there's 1 Northern Mockingbird up there [1].

May 3, 2023 at Duke Farms
Photo 278557926, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

Next there's another bird that's around here often enough but that I mostly see in the spring, a Brown Thrasher [2]. Though they don't look similar and aren't in the same genus as the Northern Mockingbird, they are in the same bird mimic family [3]. Unlike the Northern Mockingbird who generally repeat a sound 3 times, the Brown Thrasher tends to repeat only twice, so you can sometimes distinguish them just by hearing them.

May 3, 2023 at Duke Farms
Photo 278556938, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)


[1] In my experience, there's almost never an ambulance hiding in the foliage of a tree.

[2] I attribute me seeing them more in the spring to the thrashers trying to be more conspicuous to potential mates leading into breeding season, which has the side effect of making them more conspicuous to me too.

[3] Unfortunately I didn't see a Gray Catbird on this day, missing the Bird Mimic Trifecta.

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