I finally got pictures of gray catbirds this morning! They’re swooping around our back porch, like a lot of other birds have been doing lately. See my video from yesterday about the sassy robin!
The last time I got photos of them was about a year and a half ago. As Mr. Charles Muntz said in the movie Up: “I’ve spent a lifetime tracking it. Sometimes years go by between sightings. I’ve tried to smoke it out of that deathly labyrinth where it lives. You can’t go in after it.”
OK, so maybe I’m exaggerating a little. On the other hand, catbirds are more often heard than seen. Many times, all you hear is a mewing noise reminiscent of a cat, but raspy and mixed with a lot of other noises it mimics from other birds (which might be one reason why the literature says it’s related to the mockingbird). And while it doesn’t live in “deathly” labyrinths, the catbird can be almost invisible in thick shrubs where it builds its nest.
The catbirds have a rusty color under their tails, which can be hard for amateurs like me to get a snapshot of. But you can find a lot of excellent videos out there, like the one below:
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