June 20, 2010 - Catty Chatter

Welcome to the Nature Notebook.

That raspy meow issuing from a shrubby thicket belongs to a gray skulker. It isn’t a cat, but rather a catbird. Not only does this catlike call imitate something else, so does the catbird’s song. Males sing loud songs in their territory consisting of a long series of short notes that are often imitations of other birds, frogs and other sounds. The order of the sounds is rather random, but certain notes can be repeated frequently. Catbirds often mix whines, whistles, squeaks and gurgles into their songs making a complex chatter of sounds. [catbird song audio] These gray birds with black caps and rusty feathers under their tail fit right in with the shadows they haunt as they slip from branch to branch in low vegetation.

This is PPL's naturalist, Jon Beam, with the Nature Notebook for WVIA.