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| Adult Gray Catbird |
You can see the difficulty with photographing these fellows. They like thickets. With the forest in bloom, they're right at home. This particular one was located in a stand of pin cherries and choke cherries along a creek. The only reason I found him was his call which starts off with a cat's mewling sound and from there takes off in anything he wants as he's a mimic, like his relative the Mockingbird.
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| Gray Cat bird |
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| Immature Gray Catbird. |
This is an immature that I photographed last year and spent hours trying to identify.
I was finally helped to identify him by some birders on the north Shore of Lake Superior who know their stuff. I'm kind of fond of them so I'm always on the lookout for them.
In the photo below you can see him starting his mewling song and adding to it.The song may end up lasting up to 10 minutes so they're fun to hear.
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| He doing his call here. |
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| Adult In Profile. |
As I said they're relatives of mockingbirds and thrashers. To some they may appear plain as their gray plumage is only alleviated by a black head patch as you can see in the photo opposite. They have no wing lines as does the Mockingbird.
A Post To WBW @ http://pineriverreview.blogspot.com/
