northeast-flora-and-fauna

This Brown Thrasher was out and about last spring. These birds are part of a family of bird mimics that includes the Northern Mockingbird . Though the Brown Thrasher doesn't look much like the Northern Mockingbird, if you can't see the bird but only hear the mimicry, you can confuse them. The main difference is that while the Brown Thrasher will mimic a sound (frequently but not necessarily a bird song/call) twice before moving on to the next sound, the Northern Mockingbird will mimic a sound 3 times before moving on to the next sound. This particular bird was slightly hidden by foliage, though it's not too bad a picture. Though range maps show Brown Thrashers spending the winter a little south of here, they are expected to winter as close to here as Delaware/Maryland. Given that birds probably adjust their migration from year to year based on temperature and the abundance of food, it wouldn't surprise me if someone spotted some of them around here in the winter. May ...

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...