Audubon at Home Sanctuary Species: Gray Catbird (Dumetella carolinensis)

Gray Catbird by Ted Rastetter

This all-gray, melodious songbird’s favored habitat is in thickets and shrubs, especially near water, where it can be seen flitting through dense foliage and brush in a rather secretive, furtive way.  It sings a song of jumbled sweet musical phrases interspersed with harsh squeals, whistles, and whines.  It is a mimic, and may imitate the songs of dozens of bird species, as well as mechanical devices. Most distinctive is its harsh, catlike mewing call.  To the Chippewa, its song sounded mournful, and they named it “the bird that cries with grief.”

Gray Catbird is a bird of edge habitats, and is well-adapted to life in the suburbs. 


To learn more about ID, range, breeding, and voice, visit Cornell’s All About Birds

What Gray Catbirds Need How Can We Help
Food and Water: The Gray Catbird's diet is about half animal, half vegetable. Catbirds forage in leaf litter on the ground and in shrubs, bushes, and low trees. In spring and summer, Catbirds eat beetles, caterpillars, grasshoppers, and spiders. Their fall and winter diet is mainly fruit, including blackberries, wild cherries, elderberries, wild grapes, dogwood, sumac, myrtle, sassafras, greenbriar, poison ivy, holly, serviceberry, and honeysuckle.
  • Plant fruiting native trees, shrubs, and vines.
  • Catbirds are attracted to feeders by raisins or chopped fruits; may also come to mealworm feeders.
  • Avoid using pesticides that may kill insects used as food, or herbicides that destroy shrubby patches used as foraging habitat.
  • Provide a birdbath or small pond for bathing and drinking. Make sure to keep birdbaths clean and free of mosquito larvae.
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    Shelter: The Catbird's roosting and sleeping behavior is almost unknown, but they are believed to use the sheltered branches of trees and shrubs.
  • Maintain bushes and shrubs with minimal pruning to provide ample roosting, sleeping, and resting cover.
  • Create hedgerows of native trees and shrubs.
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    Nesting: Catbirds favor wetland edge habitats, especially dense thickets bordering swamps, ponds, and lowland areas. Willow-dogwood shrublands are favored, but any thicket habitat, including yard shrubbery, may be chosen for a nest site. Catbirds like to build their nests in the densest, innermost heart of a thicket, within about nine feet of the ground.
  • Plant thick patches or rows of diverse native bushes, shrubs, and low-growing trees, especially along streams or ponds. Favorites include dogwoods, hawthorns, native honeysuckles and cherries, and wild grape vines.
  • The denser the better, as far as Catbirds are concerned, so resist the urge to prune the tangle if you want Catbirds to nest in your yard.
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    Other Threats: Catbirds are susceptible to predation by cats and collisons with picture windows. Low flying catbirds also frequently collide with automobiles.
  • Keep cats indoors to keep them safe from outdoor hazards and to protect birds. Remove feral cats from the neighborhood.
  • Screen windows or make them visible so Catbirds can avoid collisions.
  • Plant patches of shrubs for Catbirds away from busy roadways.

    • Where to see Gray Catbirds and their Habitat:

    Bles Park (Loudoun County), Manassas Battlefield Park (Prince William County), Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge (Fairfax)

    Find more using eBird Data: Narrow the view by entering your county in the “DATA FOR:” filter

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