With the return of the Tree Swallows and the Gray Catbirds, most the birds have returned for another season. The Catbird may be making its nest near my porch and its calls do resemble a  cat’s mew sound, but their songs may lasts ten minutes which includes imitations of birds and other things in addition to whistles and squeaks. Catbirds usually don’t repeat the phrases unlike the Brown Thrashers that normally repeat twice or the mockingbirds repeating three or more times.

Gray Catbird

The barns at the farm are filled with multiple batches of kittens, but it sounded like I had kittens in my yard too with the arrival of Gray Catbirds.  One of their common call is a like a lost kitten mewing, but their long song may last for up to 10 minutes which may mimic other birds as well as mechanical and musical notes and phrases. The catbird singing by my porch this evening almost sounded like it was saying “pretty bird” even though not a colorful bird.

Noisy Gray Catbird

Last evening and this morning, the catbird has been singing up a storm but not the catty mew which which him sound like a cat, but his long song which can last for up to ten minutes as they copy the sounds of other species and stringing them together to make his own song, like his relatives of mockingbirds and thrashers. The Gray Catbird belongs to the genus Dumetella, which means “small thicket” and they can be found in thickets of young trees, dense shrubs and vines.

Cat Sounding Bird