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 ...

Behold the majesty of the Eastern Kingbird ! This King of the Birds surveys its kingdom from its branch throne. Unfortunately for the Kingbird, many birds do not recognize its authority . In the bird world, they're probably considered more tyrants than kings however. Although they're on the small side (quite a bit smaller than American Robins and Northern Mockingbirds ), they're surprisingly willing to "mix it up" and attack far larger birds like crows, hawks, or herons [1] that they consider (perhaps correctly) to be a threat. This tyrannical behavior apparently gave them the "king" part of their common name [2] and the name of their family of birds, the tyrant flycatchers .  May 14, 2023 at Duke Farms Photo 292808121, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) [1] This doesn't seem to be a suicide mission. My guess is that their quickness and maneuverability usually saves them from dying in these encounters. [2] Though kings and tyrants aren...

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...

The old bromide says "a bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush" ... so I guess 1 bird in the bush is worth 1/2 a bird in the hand? Last January I met this Northern Mockingbird in what I believe to be (based on those thorns) a Multiflora Rose bush.  While most birds prefer to eat small invertebrates , many invertebrates are either dead or hunkered down somewhere for the winter, and things like berries and seeds become their primary food source. Though I don't like to say good things about the invasive Multiflora Rose, I can see the appeal for the mockingbird: The berries provide an easy meal. The thorns provide some protection against predators that might want to rush in. January 26, 2023 at Duke Farms Photo 263363816, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

Here's a Northern Mockingbird taking in the scenery from a low perch. I've talked about their mimicry and eating habits in prior posts, which suggests I see/hear them a lot. Today I'm going to write this stealing information from a book I borrowed from the library: What It's Like to Be a Bird - Sibley. Apparently mockingbirds will "attack" people, at least if you define an attack as "making a lot of noise and flying towards you only to veer off before getting to you". I've personally been attacked like this by Red-winged Blackbirds , Tree Swallows , and even an American Robin , but never by a mockingbird [1]. In virtually every 1 of these situations the attacking birds were trying to harass me into leaving an area, almost certainly because they perceived a threat to their nest or a fledgling. One foraging tactic they (and some other birds) use to find food is " wing flashing ". Here's the way it works. The bird lands someplace t...

This Northern Mockingbird appears to have found dinner, and it looks like caterpillar is on the menu. (At least it looks like a caterpillar; there's a small chance it's some other larval insect.) This seems to be pretty typical foraging behavior for the Northern Mockingbird, which will amble around on the ground in hopes of spotting some delicious insect. My guess is that this mockingbird hit the jackpot by finding a largish nutritious meal. Though usually mockingbirds will find stuff to eat while walking around, if they're perched on something and a meal walks by, they won't hesitate to fly down and eat it. This is also a reminder that while we think of most birds as cute, harmless animals, to the local invertebrates they are savage, remorseless predators. Perspective matters. June 16, 2022 at Duke Farms Photo 211723275, (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 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 ,...