Gray Catbird

Gray catbird

NPS Photo

Dumetella carolinensis

Gray catbirds can be found in the Big Thicket year-round, but populations in the North often migrate south for the winter, so they may be more common during the winter months.

Gray catbirds are omnivorous, eating a variety of berries and insects. They forage for their food by sifting through leaf litter on the ground. They have also been observed to eat a variety of human foods when they find them, but you should not feed them if you encounter them!

Grey catbirds build their nests off the ground in dense thickets of vegetation. Females will generally do most of the work when building the nest. Females will lay about three to five eggs at a time but may raise two broods per year. The female will incubate the eggs, but both parents will help feed chicks once they have hatched.

 

Did You Know?

• During breeding season, males may sing continuously in the mornings to impress females.
• Another species of bird, called the cowbird, is known for laying its eggs in other birds’ nests to avoid having to raise their chicks. Grey catbirds will often puncture the eggs of cowbirds put in their nest and remove the shell.

 

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Sources

Crowell, K. L., & Rothstein, S. I. (1981). Clutch sizes and breeding strategies among Bermudan and North American passerines. Ibis, 123(1), 42-50.

Kaufman, K. (2001). Lives of North American Birds. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Payne, R. B. (1977). The ecology of brood parasitism in birds. Annual review of ecology and systematics, 8(1), 1-28.