Gray Catbird

Dumetella carolinensis · Songbirds

Gray Catbird, singing

Arverne Preserve, 20 June 2026

A Gray Catbird singing from the thicket at Arverne, a bird of dense shrubbery across the eastern half of the continent, and one of the more conversational birds in any thicket, often answering back if you talk to it.

Named for a mewing call that sounds startlingly like a cat, though what is coming out here is the song proper: a long, rambling series of notes, rarely repeated, that puts the catbird in the same family as mockingbirds and thrashers. All slate grey but for the black cap and a rusty patch under the tail that does not show in this pose.

Gray Catbirds

Prospect Park, 23 May 2026

Two catbirds facing off at close range in a Prospect Park thicket, bills open. Catbirds are birds of dense shrubbery across the eastern half of the continent, and in May the park's undergrowth is full of them, just back from the Gulf coast and sorting out territories.

More likely a dispute between rivals than a courtship exchange, given the raised wing and confrontational posture of the bird on the left. The name comes from the catbird's mewing, almost feline alarm call, quite unlike the varied and musical song it also sings; the rust-coloured patch under the tail, hidden here, is the other reliable field mark.