Gray Catbirds at Clear Creek Metro Park in Southeast Ohio

Birding Hocking Hills in Southeastern Ohio

...continued from the post on Black and White Warblers.
Gray Catbirds…I just love it when I hear that distinctive “mew” from the bushes. Here in Cincy, I don’t hear it that often. Gray Catbirds are on the Little Miami Trail, but usually just one or two at a time (and not every time I go), but in Hocking Hills, they were everywhere! And predictably, just like at an earlier visit at Strouds Run State Park, the little piggies were never too far from the blackberry bushes!

If you lived in the Hocking Hills area, you might become immune to these gorgeous birds because they are so numerous, but for me, seeing them all over the place was a treat.

Walking on the Creekside Meadows trail, it was no surprise when I heard that familiar mew and saw my first of many Gray Catbirds take off for cover in the thick, grapevine-cluttered brushy edge. What did surprise me, however, was the repertoire of lovely whistled song that followed. Being a mimic like the Northern Mockingbird and Brown Thrasher, Catbirds can let loose with lots of different songs, and I've heard a few of them on the Little Miami River trail, but they were never as pretty as those I heard at Clear Creek Metro Park! All day long and in different locations in the park I would suddenly hear an unfamiliar song coming from the brush. I wouldn't recognize the notes, but I would recognize the pitch…and soon enough I’d see that familiar gray shadow singing behind leaves in a tangle of branches.

This photo shows a little of that bright flash of red feathers under his tail.

I saw more Gray Catbirds in five days in Hocking Hills than I've seen in my life in Cincinnati!

This is how I would normally see the Catbirds. Hidden away in the brush, skulking behind leaves.

With all the berry eating I've been talking about, you would think I would have been able to capture lots of the cutie-pies plucking off the juicy fruits and swallowing them down, but I couldn't. When eating, the Catbirds preferred the privacy of the hedge, being secretive and shy, but this fellow messed up. He was so into his juicy red fruit he didn't see me standing just below him, and me.....panicked....and hurrying to catch him in the act, caught only so-so photos.

Look at that juicy red blackberry in his bill.

If you look closely you can see red berry juice

all over his bill and the feathers around his mouth...

A total berryfest.

A bummer of a photo, but you can see the red

berry juice around his bill and in his feathers...and

you can see where it's run all down his chest. It

cracks me up, and lets you see how crazy

these birds were for the fruit.