Gray Catbird

Wordless - Gray Catbird

The Gray Catbird Often Heard but not Seen

The gray catbird is one of those birds that is often difficult to see but not so difficult to hear. These birds spend most of their life in the tangled underbrush where you typically only see flashes of movement as they flutter between branches. There they hunt insects on the bushes and on the ground as well as eating berries when they find them.

They are a member of the mimid family, which also includes mocking birds and thrashers, so they are able to mimic other birds calls, often combining several mimicked calls to create a call of their own. The males are typically the ones that use these vocal abilities, usually to advertise their territory and warn other males away. Their territory usually consists of brushy areas with plenty of under growth in the eastern portions of North America. During the winter they migrate south down into Central America and the northern tip of South America. This one was photographed in Hyland Park near the Richardson Nature Center.

Gray Catbird

Road Trip Necedah

Last week Michelle and I made a pretty big change. We decided to take my truck in and buy a new car. This is kind of a big deal because I have been driving trucks for twenty some years and not owned a car, other then Michelle's cars, since my first vehicle, but I decided it was time to do more to help the environment and my truck was only getting 15 MPG so it was time to trade it in for something a bit more fuel efficient.

So I bought myself a Honda Insight hybrid. For day to day I do not drive all that much, between 30 to 40 miles to work and back, but since I like to go out to photograph nature in a variety of different habitats I do put on a few miles doing road trips. So this weekend I took the new car on its first road trip to Necedah NWR in Wisconsin. Everything went perfect, the weather was nice, there was a good amount of wildlife to photograph, and the new car, pictured next to the Necedah sign above, worked great. The trip was 384.4 miles round trip and I used 9.1 gallons of gas, which means that I got over 42 MPG.

Since this is a nature blog and not a car blog I also took some pictures of wildlife while I was there. I was excited to see a pair of endangered whooping cranes out in the field in front of the observation tower, unfortunately they were too far away to get any good pics.

I did get some better pics of the red headed woodpeckers. They are quite common in Necedah. This is probably due to all of the dead wood that the staff leaves in the refuge. Red headed woodpeckers thrive in habitats where there is a lot of dead wood around. They use cracks and crevices in the dead wood to cache their food, this would include seeds, nuts, and even live insects.

Eastern kingbirds are also pretty common in Necedah. They can usually be found hunting for flying insects in the open fields.

Gray catbirds are usually more secretive. You are much more likely to hear one then you are to see one as they typically stay in shrubs or brush piles repeating their distinctive call.

Necedah is also a great place to photograph butterflies. It is one of the best places in the world to find the endangered Karner blue butterfly. The Karner is a sub species of the Melissa blue that is found mostly in the Great Lakes region. The Karner blue caterpillar is very particular and will only eat the lupine plant. As the amount of lupine decreases, due to habitat destruction and fire suppression, so does the population of the Karner blue. They have already disappeared from many areas where they used to be quite common.

Monarchs, on the other hand are quite common. They are probably the most recognized butterfly in the world. They really love blazing star, which are blooming all around Necedah at this time. They need a lot of nectar because they will begin migrating south soon.

Another butterfly that was partaking of nectar from the wildflowers of Necedah was the eastern tiger swallowtail. The eastern tiger swallowtail is common though out most of the eastern United States. It can be confused with the Canadian tiger swallowtail, which is a bit smaller then the eastern tiger swallowtail but other then that they pretty much look the same, in the northern states where their ranges cross over.

PhotoFriday Challenge: Disorder

This weeks Photofriday Challenge is disorder. There is quite a bit in nature that you could probably classify under the heading of disorder, weather is the first thing that comes to my mind. However it is my belief that nature has its own order, and just because it does not always fit into man's logic or we can not predict it does that really mean that we can call it disorder?
For the challenge I have chosen this gray catbird that I photographed at the Maplewood Nature Center back on August 15, 2008. The reason why I chose him to represent this challenge should be obvious.

He spent quite a while out in the open on this log preening. He would make a great poster boy for the old saying, "things are going to get worse before they get better". I did see him again a few days later in about the same spot and he looked pretty disheveled and in disorder again on that occasion also.

Birding at the Bass Ponds

Over near the Bass Ponds the shallow waters of the flood plain of the Minnesota River have attracted a good number of great blue heron and great egret.
Their tall legs and long necks are perfect for wading through the shallow water and picking off fish, frogs, snakes and other appetising delights.

Up near the path I think that I got to close to a gray catbirds nest or at least its territory, because this catbird was not shy about reading me the riot act. It was so noisy that I was afraid that it was going to have a melt down.
Usually I only get fleeting glimpse of catbirds as they move through the dense foliage. It is easy to know when they are around though, since they have one of the easiest calls to recognize. I am not very good with bird calls yet. I did several Christmas Bird Counts last year, and I was partnered with Jim Ryan on one, Steve Weston on one, and Mike Hendricks on a couple, and these guys were all very easily able to ID birds by song. I am still at the stage where I am trying to ID them by sight, however even I know a catbird when I here it. This catbird was not satisfied with scolding me from inside the bushes though it had to come out in plain sight to let me have it. I snapped a few pictures and then moved on unfortunately all the ruckus spooked the other birds around and so I was not able to get any more bird pics. So I decided to turn to butterflies.

Carpenter Banding

Every once in a while I am fortunate enough to get some time off on a Friday. On those days I like to head over to the Carpenter Nature Center to check out the bird banding. June 13th was one of those days, unfortunately it was also a bit windy that day so there were not many birds that were being caught in the nets. When it is windy the nets blow in the wind and the birds spot the movement and thus more of them avoid the nets. In the hour and a half that I was there I only spotted this gray catbird in the nets. The interesting part of banding is that you get to see birds up close and at angles that you typically don't see in the wild. For instance it is not often that you get at good look at the rufous undertail coverts of the gray catbird.
Since there were not many birds in the nets I decided to take a walk around the grounds to see what I could spot. Chipping sparrows are quit common in the area right now, as are eastern kingbirds.
With all the flies that we have around this year it is no wonder why a lot of fly catchers,like the eastern kingbirds have decided to stay in the area instead of heading farther north.
There were also several eastern bluebirds around Carpenter. I think that they are nesting in the boxes that they have out in the fields. In an earlier post I mentioned that I have seen a lot more eastern bluebirds in the area then I did last year. Maybe the high bug population this year, except for butterflies which appear to have declined this year, has helped to make them more successful in the area.

Birding in Fort Snelling State Park

Today we begin the trip home. I always get sad to leave here and go back to the real world, but we have a lot of great pictures. This is probably our most productive trip to Yellowstone. We saw almost everything that there was to see. We had 3 wolf sightings this year, which was great because we have never seen wolves in the park before. We got some pics of a prairie falcon, which was a life bird for me. We also got some good badger shots and golden eagle shots. We had seen both in the park on past trips but we were able to get better pics this time. Yesterdays weather actually cleared up quite a bit, despite what the weather people forecasted, and we were fortunate to see an elk calf that had been born only 30 minutes before we photographed it. We also got a lot of great bird pics including mountain bluebird, raven, white-crowned sparrow, common merganser, buffelhead, Barrow's goldeneye, eared grebe, kestrel, grouse and a few more.

We did not get back until late yesterday and we are trying to leave soon so I did not have time to get any more Yellowstone pics ready, but I do have some more passerines that I photographed at Fort Snelling State Park on May 12th.

song sparrow
white-throated sparrow
gray catbird
yellow-rumped warbler Myrtle variety

blackburnian warbler

I will have a lot of pics to share when I get home but I may not be able to post for the next couple of days while we are driving. If I am not able to post I hope that everyone has a happy Memorial Day.

On my way home from Crex Meadows

On my way home from Crex Meadows last week I spotted a red-tailed hawk perched on a tree on the side of the road. Fortunately it was real close to the St Croix Riverway Marshland Center. I pulled into the parking lot and parked then walked down highway 70 and got a couple of shots before he took off. Since it was already early evening it looked like the Marshland Center building was closed but since I was already parked I decided to take a look around the grounds. I started by going around the south part of the building. In the back was a small patio surrounded by bushes filled with black berries. I sat and waited a few minutes and soon a few yellow-rumped warblers showed up to feast on the fruit.After watching the warblers for a few minutes I continued down the path, that ran along that side of the building, and I spotted a dainty sulfur fluttering by the path. It landed on some dead leaves on the ground and I was able to get a couple of shots. The path led down to the St Croix River which is very beautiful all decked out in fall colors.
On my way back to the car I decided to take the path that went along the north side of the building. The first thing I spotted were several dark-eyed juncos scavenging on the ground near the path. As I approached they took off and one was generous enough to land in a nearby tree. There he posed for me with the sun shinning in his eye and a backdrop of autumn color behind him. It may be a common bird but it turned out to be a wonderful picture.

A short while later I found a chipping sparrow that was willing to give me a great shot also. At least I think he is a chipping sparrow. It is still hard for me to ID sparrows in their fall plumage.The last bird that I got a shot of was one that I heard before I saw him. I am not very good about identifying bird songs but the gray catbird is an easy one. It took a few minutes but I finally found a couple of them in the low brush and got a pic.I was a bit confused by the eyes, which according to the field guides and pictures of other catbirds that I have taken in the past are usually dark. Maybe it was just the way that the light was hitting it. Usually you don't get the luxury of shooting catbirds with any light, since they are typically in dense brush.

For a small 30 minute side trip, that started out because of a hawk sighting, I don't think that I did too bad.

Birding Woodlake Nature Center

I spent some time earlier this week at Woodlake Nature Center. This was the first opportunity that I have had to get out to Woodlake while the weather was descent. The birds have begun to migrate back through so things are getting a bit more exciting, even though I still took more pictures of insects on this visit then I did birds. One of the birds that I viewed on this visit that I have not seen there before was a gray catbird.

It was pretty hard to get a picture of him, since he was pretty well hidden in the brush. I was hoping to hear his cat call but unfortunately he was silent.

There were several cardinals around in the woods by the visitors center. Both of the males and the one female that I saw looked pretty scruffy as they seem to be molting.

There are still plenty of american goldfinch around.

And a few downy woodpeckers were out in the wooded areas.Things are still pretty wet from all of the rain we received a couple of weeks ago, which is good for the canadian geese who have remained throughout the summer.It is also nice for the wood ducks who have stopped back in the area on their way back through the fall migration.