Gray Catbird (Common Bird Species of Richmond National Battlefield)

Gray Catbird

Dumetella carolinensis

Summary ⁶

The Gray Catbird (Dumetella carolinensis), also spelled Grey Catbird, is a medium-sized northern American perching bird of the mimid family. It is the only member of the "catbird" genus Dumetella. Like the Black Catbird (Melanoptila glabrirostris), it is among the basal lineages of the Mimidae, probably a closer relative of the Caribbean thrasher and trembler assemblage than of the mockingbirds and Toxostoma thrashers. In some areas it is known as the Slate-colored Mockingbird.

Taxon biology ⁷

The Gray Catbird (Dumetella carolinensis) breeds from southern British Columbia (Canada) south to northern New Mexico (U.S.A.) and eastward across most of the United States and adjacent Canada, as well as on Bermuda (where it is present year-round). Gray Catbirds winter from the Gulf Coast and Atlantic Coastal Plain of the United States south to Panama, as well as in parts of the Caribbean.

Gray Catbirds often skulk in dense thickets, but their rambling songs, with a mix of melodious and harsh and squeaky notes, make their presence obvious in spring and summer. Among the Gray Catbird's several calls is a drawn out mew that is the source of its common name.

The diet consists mainly of insects and other small arthropods (especially in early summer) and berries. Nestlings are fed almost entirely on insects, but more than half the annual adult diet may be plant material, especially in fall and winter.

Early in the breeding season the male sings almost constantly in the morning and evening and sometimes at night. Courtship may involve the male chasing the female, posturing and bowing with wings drooped and tail raised; the male may face away from the female to show off the patch of chestnut under his tail (present in both sexes).

The nest is typically constructed by the female in dense thickets or small trees, typically 1 to 3 m above the ground. It is a large, bulky cup of twigs, weeds, grass, and leaves and lined with rootlets and other fine materials. The 3 to 4 (sometimes 2 or 5, rarely 1 or 6) eggs are greenish blue, rarely with some red spots. They are incubated (by the female only) for 12 to 14 days. Both parents feed the nestlings. Nestlings leave the nest around 10 to 11 days after hatching. Two broods per year is typical. When Brown-headed Cowbirds lay eggs in a Gray Catbird nest, the cowbird eggs are usually recognized, punctured, and ejected by the adult catbirds.

Migration apparently occurs mainly at night. Birds breeding in the Northwest seem to migrate east before turning south in fall since they are rarely seen in the Southwest.

(Kaufman 1996; AOU 1998; Dunn and Alderfer 2011)