northeast-flora-and-fauna

You've heard of the Bluebird of Happiness  (presumably looking sort of like this guy )? Given all the noise they make, this must be the Graybird of Loquaciousness . It's actually a Gray Catbird , 1 of my area's most talkative birds. In the summer you can see these birds everywhere, and hear them more than that. July 6, 2023 at Scherman Hoffman Wildlife Sanctuary Photo 301263315, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

Here's 1 of last year's Gray Catbirds . After yesterday's Brown-headed Cowbirds , you might be asking yourself, besides cats and cows, are there a lot of mammal names starting with C that form a name of a bird? I can't think of any, though I did check to see if there was anything called a Coyotebird (I got some roadrunner hits), Capybarabird (you'll find pictures of a Capybara with a bird on its head/back), or Chimpbirds (you'll learn that some birds have as much impulse control as chimpanzees).  Catbirds derive the cat part of their name based on a cat-like vocalization they make while cowbirds get the cow part of their name for hanging around bovines. It would appear that many birds being named didn't get associated in the human mind with this category of mammals. This individual was doing a good job of showing off the crisp light gray feathering covering most of their body and the dark gray cap.  June 24, 2023 at Duke Farms Photo 301212523, (c) jpviolett...

One small branch marred an otherwise pretty good view of a Gray Catbird . Although they're considered mimics , I usually hear them making a loud squawky call that some people interpret as sounding like a cat [1]. (Perhaps the Gray Catbirds are mimicking the calls of other squawking Gray Catbirds? If so, they've got that impersonation down cold.) Although I can understand people who aren't crazy about their vocalizations, they are neat-looking little birds. June 10, 2023 at Duke Farms Photo 300986006, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) [1] Think of a cat making a threatening or amorous cry rather than a "my bowl is empty" meow.

As animals with eyes at the front of our heads, we might think that this Gray Catbird isn't watching us but is looking in the direction of its beak. But Gray Catbirds have eyes on the sides of their heads with a correspondingly wide field of vision , and thus this bird could have been watching me closely. So while most of our backyard birds may look to us like they're watching something else or even ignoring us, if you can see their eye they can also see you. May 12, 2023 at Lord Stirling Park Photo 282422174, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

A couple weeks ago I posted about 2 of New Jersey's 3 most common bird mimics that I saw back on May 3. Only 2 days later in May I encountered several of the 3rd mimic, the Gray Catbird . During warmer months [1], these guys are perhaps the easiest of our bird mimics to notice, though it's not usually because of their mimicry. I almost always notice them from their calls - sort of a squawky mewing sound [2] - than their songs - a long sequence of mimicked sounds [3].  Gray Catbirds do have a crisp-look about them, and are a soft gray except for a dark patch on the top of their heads. The 1st 2 pictures show the catbirds vocalizing, though it wouldn't shock me if the 3rd 1 had been vocalizing when I spotted it.  May 5, 2023 at Duke Island Park Photo 282300923, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) May 5, 2023 at Duke Island Park Photo 282301086, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) May 5, 2023 at Duke Island Park Photo 282301126, (c) jpviolette, some ri...

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...

Like quite a few birds, this bird is easier to identify when spotted with her significant other ; she's a Brown-headed Cowbird . Due to their tendency to be monogamous plus plain old birds-of-a-feather behavior, I usually see them with prominently brown-headed males around, greatly improving my confidence in IDing them. My understanding is that Brown-headed Cowbirds are the only obligate brood parasites in my area. Obligate brood parasites have essentially lost all their parenting skills, and thus if they were ever unable to fool other birds into raising their young, they would (almost certainly) go extinct [1]. There are, however, other brood parasites in New Jersey. These are called facultative brood parasites, and these birds will usually raise their own offspring, but will also engage in brood parasitism. (Exactly when birds perform facultative brood parasitism seems variable; one source said it occurred when resources were scarce while another said it occurred when resource...

Here's a Northern Cardinal picture from last December. Similar to yesterday's post of a Gray Catbird , the cardinal had food on his mind, and I suspect those are more Multiflora Rose berries in his mouth. (At least those look like Multiflora Rose thorns on some of those branches.) Note that I said his/he; only the adult males have the flamboyant red plumage, and while some birds (I'm looking at you, American Goldfinch ) only have bright plumage during breeding season, the Northern Cardinal males look this way all year round. This is an interesting evolutionary "choice" that the Northern Cardinal has made. I'm sure their bright coloring has attracted unwanted attention from Sharp-shinned and Cooper's Hawks , it probably does ensure that only the strongest, wiliest males survive to breeding season to pass on their genes to the next generation [1]. Although Northern Cardinals are common enough that we may take them for granted, people who haven't seen ...

This is my most wintry Gray Catbird photo. One of our squawkiest birds much of the year, I rarely see or hear them in the winter despite them being described as winter residents of NJ . (Of course, migration "rules" are a lot looser than we typically portray them, and it's possible that relatively few choose to winter here.) This bird may have been eyeing those berries for its next meal. The berries and thorns make me think the berries were on a Multiflora Rose , though nearby leaves suggest the thicket contained Japanese Honeysuckle too. I've been told that berries from invasive plants tend to be less nutritious for our native animals [1], but I have to admit that the birds are probably grateful for any plentiful berries it can find in the winter. I suspect that getting enough calories is the most important thing for winter bird survival. December 13, 2022 at Washington Valley Park Photo 251087037, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) [1] More precisely,...

Here's a bird that's commonly found in the warmer months (like this one ) but that's supposed to be around here all winter: the Gray Catbird . Although I spotted one in December, I rarely spot them this time of year. My guess is that this is because they're quieter this time of the year. The best reason for them to be squawking loudly is because that's the way males tell other males that this is their territory, and in the middle of winter there's just no need to be establishing a territory.  This suggests that the loud squawking we associate with this species is almost all being done by the males, though females will make a softer-sounding version of this call. Given the foliage around it, I suspect this was one of those loud males. September 9, 2022 at Duke Farms Photo 248761176, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

A couple weeks ago I encountered 2 (presumably) different Brown Thrashers ; at least I saw them almost 2 hours apart and a healthy walk away from each other. Because I don't see them very often I wasn't sure who I was seeing, but the leading candidates were the Brown Thrasher or the Wood Thrush . When I looked at the pictures at home and looked them up in my field guides, the long tail, streaky rather than spotty marks on the breast/belly, and lack of lines near the eye convinced me that I had Brown Thrashers. (Brown Thrashers are also quite a bit larger than Wood Thrushes, though without a "reference bird" like an American Robin nearby it's kind of hard to judge size.) Brown Thrashers are one of our general-purpose mimics, and it's believed that they have an even larger repertoire of songs than their Northern Mockingbird relatives. While the Northern Mockingbird will usually mimic a sound 3 times, the Brown Thrasher will mimic it only twice, making it possi...

Here's a bird I started seeing about a month ago and is now one of our easiest birds to spot, a Gray Catbird . Before April whenever I'd catch a glimpse of a bird it would usually turn out to be an American Robin , and now when I hear a bird (and manage to locate it) it frequently turns out to be a Gray Catbird. I don't think the issue is that we now have fewer American Robins, nor that we have a lot more Gray Catbirds than American Robins; the American Robin is in the running for the most common species of bird in North American. I think that the change has to do with 2 factors combining together: The Gray Catbird is a bolder, louder bird that will vocalize in one spot, sometimes even when it knows it's been spotted by a human. As the trees leaf out, the quieter American Robin takes advantage of this and hides more effectively. This doesn't mean that you won't find robins around. But if you're in a place with a lot of foliage, it might be easier to find cat...

Here's a Blue Jay foraging along a roadway last autumn. It's a bird I've talked about before , though I'm sure entire books have been written about these colorful, loud, and clever birds.  While the size differences of the birdfeeder birds may not seem important to us, they frequently make a big difference to the birds themselves. Cardinals are around twice the size of many of our sparrows, and the Blue Jay is nearly twice the size of a cardinal. This is why Blue Jays are among the most dominant/prominent birds at a birdfeeder, at least among the frequent visitors. (Occasional visits by someone like a Pileated Woodpecker or crow - let alone a Wild Turkey - would upset the hierarchy.) At least until the Gray Catbirds return, the Blue Jays probably reign supreme around here in the loud squawking department. Even when you can't see these attractive birds, you can still hear them. October 11, 2021 at Duke Farms Photo 168359172, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (...

Here's a Gray Catbird I met. While sometimes I'm just using a photograph to introduce a topic, this picture came out pretty well. The dark gray cap stands out against the light gray elsewhere, and you can even see a hint of the rufous coloring on the undertail, usually only seen inflight. These are birds that speak their mind. Their squawky vocalizations remind people of a cat's call, though I doubt it's ever fooled a single cat. Though this fella was out in the open, catbirds will sometimes squawk from dense foliage. (If you ever think a thicket is squawking at you, there could be a catbird in there.) They are officially mimics; they're even related to our most-heard mimic, the Northern Mockingbird ; in some circles the Gray Catbird is actually called the Slate-colored Mockingbird. Unlike their cousins though, the Gray Catbird wants to have nothing to do with our winters. I only see them in warmer months (though supposedly a few of isolated individuals do stick ar...

Here's a Northern Mockingbird , though as I recall at the time it was not mocking anyone. This bird is probably our most common general-sound mimic. While Blue Jays do excellent Red-tailed Hawk and Red-shouldered Hawk impressions, Northern Mockingbirds have a wider repertoire. Jogging by the Robert Woods Johnson Hospital one morning I'm almost certain one was doing an ambulance siren. Many times you can identify them solely by sound when you hear one go through 5-6 different sounds one after the other, then start again at the beginning. (Sure, it's possible that you've got 6 different birds hiding in the same spot and taking turns singing ... but practically speaking you're probably safe in assuming you've got a mimic hiding up there.) A related bird, the Brown Thrasher , is similar. One way to differentiate them by sound is that the Northern Mockingbird repeats a sound 3 times while the Brown Thrasher repeats a sound twice. Another relative, the Gray Catbird ,...