08.31.25: Catbird behind leaves

‍I guess this is a story about how my many hours hiking in search of wildlife to photograph have conditioned me to link specific sounds to specific animals.

‍A few years ago I was hiking through a field near the edge of a forest when I heard something that sounded like a cat mewing in the underbrush. “Gray Catbird,” I told myself, then turned the camera toward the sound in hopes of getting a shot of the catbird if it popped to the top of a plant.

‍After a few minutes watching the top of plants my peripheral vision caught motion near the bottom. That’s when the source of the sound appeared.

‍It was an actual cat — not a catbird — that had been roaming the field, likely looking for birds. According to a study released in 2013, cats living in the wild or indoor cats that roam outdoors kill from 1.4 billion to as many as 3.7 billion birds in the United States each year. That’s a huge concern for those who track bird populations or manage wildlife sanctuaries.

‍I would have much preferred that the sound I heard have been a Gray Catbird. And the fact that I mistook the sound of a real cat for a bird demonstrates just how much the catbird sounds like the real thing.

‍I photographed this catbird in 2019 perched quietly on a plant in a field. A quiet moment is a rarity for this species.

‍Catbirds are named for the catlike mewing sound they make, but that’s just a small part of the bird’s repertoire. Gray Catbirds are relatives of mockingbirds and share many of a mockingbird’s singing abilities. Like a mockingbird, a catbird can copy parts of songs from other bird species and string them together to create its own song. And those songs can be lengthy, at times lasting up to 10 minutes.