Gray Catbird

Secure Shopping

Gray Catbird
Gray Catbirds are denizens of early successional shrub and sapling habitats that are found near stream borders and along forest edges. Suburban landscapes often contain good habitat, and catbirds have most likely benefited from the expansion of residential development and edge habitat. Gray Catbird populations are highest in habitats with the densest shrubbery. Although some pine plantations are used, catbirds tend to avoid coniferous forests.

Within their often-impenetrable habitat, Gray Catbirds forage on the ground or glean from bark and branches. During spring, the majority of their food consists of insects and other arthropods, including ants, beetles, caterpillars, grasshoppers, spiders, and millipedes. More unusual animal foods that have been reported include large saturniid moths, dragonflies, and small trout fry captured by wading at a fish hatchery. When feeding on the ground, catbirds toss leaves aside with their bills to get prey hidden beneath. As fruit becomes available it makes up more of the catbird's diet; by summer fruit makes up more than half of the adult diet and during fall and winter as much as 80 percent. Nestlings are fed insect food almost exclusively until just before fledging, when fruit is introduced into their menu. Fruits consumed include honeysuckle, buckthorn, ilex, grapes, dogwood, and poison ivy.

Catbirds may respond to intruders with a variety of vocalizations. The typical song is made up of a combination of coarse low notes and higher pitched squeaks and chips interspersed with bits of songs mimicked from other birds. The use of mimicry varies greatly among individual catbirds and may be distorted or fragmentary. Catbirds rarely repeat phrases, unlike thrashers or Northern Mockingbirds. Catbird calls include the catlike meow call that gives them their name; a soft quirrt or kwut that functions as a low-intensity alarm call; or a louder, grating ratchet call given when suddenly alarmed, especially near the nest.

A number of nests are often built by both sexes only to be abandoned, but the female usually builds the one that is ultimately used. Nests are placed between 3 and 10 feet above the ground and are typically well concealed within a tangle of vines or thicket. Lined with rootlets, the nests are built of twigs, grapevine bark, and grasses. Females incubate eggs while the male stands guard nearby. He occasionally feeds his mate.

Following the nesting season, Gray Catbirds stop singing, usually in late July or early August and undergo a complete molt before beginning to migrate. Migration is chiefly nocturnal. Although catbirds occasionally linger in the North despite cold and snow, they are most common in winter along the coast from North Carolina to Florida and Louisiana. Some birds continue south as far as Panama.

Description: The Gray Catbird is our only all-dark-gray bird with rufous undertail coverts. The gray back blends gradually into the long black tail; there is also a black cap. Like other mimics, they are medium in size (approximately 8.5 to 9.0 inches in length) and slender. Their eyes, bill, and legs are black. In the juvenal plumage, the cap is dull brownish and some brown mottling is evident on the back. A molt in August results in adult plumage. Both sexes look alike.

Crissal Thrasher (Toxostoma crisalle) also has rufous undertail coverts, but this bird is buffy in color with a long, decurved bill and a white throat bordered in black.

The breeding range of the Gray Catbird extends from the Atlantic Ocean to the Prairie Provinces and Rocky Mountains and as far west as British Columbia. Most of these catbirds winter along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts. Western Gray Catbirds migrate first to the east and then turn south to reach their winter range.
Gray Catbird Range Map

Visit Shaw Creek Bird Supply to see our Gray Catbird Nesting Perch.