catbird

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“He is neither the rare plover or the brilliant bunting but 

as common as the grass.” 

Today we open with a bit of Mary Oliver from her poem "Catbird" sent to us from Betty Thompson in Nebraska.

Gray catbirds are shy, often going unseen hiding in the understory especially blackberry thickets. But their real claim to fame is that like Northern mockingbirds and brown thrashers they are mimics, open-ended learners that add phrases to their repertoire all their lives. But these mimics punctuate their long songs with an occasional "meow" like a tabby which is where their name comes from.

Without the "meow," you can tell the three species apart even without seeing them by counting the number of times they repeat each phrase. With catbirds it is only once; with thrashers it is generally twice; and with mockingbirds it is three or more times.

Thank you, Betty.  

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