The Gray Catbird on the boardwalk...

...this is probably one of the most recognized (and ignored) Gray Catbirds on the planet. I saw him in May when I was at Magee Marsh (near Toledo, Ohio) at the Biggest Week in American Birding warbler festival. Every time I was there, so was he...literally on the boardwalk, walking around trying to get everyone's attention. When you're a Gray Catbird surrounded by thousands of brightly colored rare warblers, you have to work a little harder to get any respect...

A beautiful Gray Catbird at Magee Marsh

Hey! Look at me...I'm a neotropical migrant too (just a little larger and grayer). 

This Catbird was not afraid of anyone. He would walk the planks while people looked on and walked past him. Apparently Gray Catbirds are forced to take drastic measures to compete with the glittery, colorful, tiny, fleeting warblers...

When he wasn't on the boardwalk, he dropped down beside it to forage on the ground and in shrubs for insects. He really is quite beautiful, and when he's not mewing, he has a lovely and varied song (mimicking other birds as well). 

Catbirds are great subjects to study to learn wing feathers. Since the birds are large, the feathers are easy to see. On the top of the "stack" are the three tertials, followed by the secondaries, then the primaries (the longest flight feathers) on bottom. 

The spring songbird in the winter gray flannel suit... 

Is it neophilia, or is it gray flannel?

If I heard, "Oh, it's just a catbird," once, I heard it a million times. These poor birds with their sweet mews and songs got no respect along the boardwalk. It's easy to understand, though. In the grips of WARBLERMANIA, the more common songbirds often fall by the wayside. Neophilia is the love of or enthusiasm for what is new or novel, and humans often fall prey to its lure. Many of the spring warblers are fleeting and rare and are definitely novel in our parts. Some of the visitors stay, but others are just stopping off on their long flight north adding to their mystique, but our sweet berry-loving catbirds are brave enough to live among us, becoming commonplace in the process. In the wild, catbirds like swampy, boggy, and soggy areas. You can always find them streamside along the Little Miami River, but they are neotropical migrants that can adapt, and they have taken to suburban and urban backyards packed with berries. We have resident catbirds in our backyard all spring and summer. They come readily to the mulberries and then stick around for the pokeweed berries, so maybe that's why throngs of people move quickly past them to look for the cute and colorful rare warblers...

...or maybe it's just the gray flannel! 

To attract Cedar Waxwings to your yard, let the pokeweed run wild...

The dark purple-blue berries of Common Pokeweed (Phytolacca americana) are irresistible to Cedar Waxwings. So much so that I don't even have to look out the window to know when they start to ripen. As soon as I hear the high-pitched, magical chittering of a flock of Cedar Waxwings in our backyard, I know the pokeberries are in season...

Common Pokeberries are ready for plucking and eating (by birds only; pokeweed berries are poisonous and can make humans sick). As soon as the berries are ripe, Cedar Waxwings descend and start feasting.  

These photos are from August 5 when most of the berries were not yet ripe. It was the beginning of their fruiting season, but it didn't stop the Cedar Waxwings from moving in. They knew exactly where every ripe berry was and wasted no time taking advantage of the nutritious summer treat. Now, the established plants are mostly picked over, but younger plants growing beside their elders are dripping with the dark, plump berries. In the wild, pokeweed plants look common, but in the suburbs, they look intensely exotic. Their cranberry red stems and racemes create an exciting backdrop to the dark blue fruit, and as autumn progresses, the colors only intensify. Our first stand of pokeweed started as a volunteer in 2008. At first I didn't know what it was, so I just let it grow, and did it ever grow. It grew tall and wide and arching, and soon it was dripping with chartreuse berries, but when they started to ripen, the fun really began. The first birds to eat the dark berries were robins, then came catbirds, and finally Cedar Waxwings. Over the years the catbirds still come, and the robins do too, but the Cedar Waxwings are the biggest consumer. I have a lot of pokeweed plants scattered around my yard, so I hear their chittery, magical sounds all summer.

A Cedar Waxwing looks for ripe berries. (There are two birds in this photo...can you see the second bird at the bottom near the right.) These two birds are part of a flock of 6 birds that regularly forage in our backyard. Earlier in the season, they feasted on mulberries from our 6 mulberry trees. 

A Cedar Waxwing swallows a pokeweed berry whole. You can see the bird's gular pouch distending to hold the berry (click here to learn more about gular pouches). 

If Thoreau liked pokeweed...
...it has to be good, right? I was reading "The Book of Field and Roadside; Open-country Weeds, Trees, and Wildflowers of Eastern North American," by John Eastman, and came across a reference to Thoreau where he wrote, "its stems are more beautiful than most flowers," which is true. You can't walk past the plant without taking a second look. I wanted to see what else Thoreau said about pokeweed, so I looked up the passage and found it in "The Writings of Henry Davide Thoreau, Volume 10," page 393. Click here for the online link to the free ebook. He goes on to describe them in detail as only Thoreau can, ending with "It is a royal plant. I could spend the evening of the year musing amid the poke stems."  

Pokeweed has a wide spreading habit. This is just one plant (and it's only half of it!). Pokeweed grows 4-10 feet tall, and its berries can remain viable for 40 years. 

Pretty to look at, but leave the berries for the birds (all parts of a pokeweed plant are toxic to humans). 

Pokeweed is a poisonous plant...
If you have children, pokeweed might not be a good plant for your yard. The roots are the most poisonous, followed by the leaves and stems, and then the berries. Children can be sickened by eating as few as 10 berries. Babies are especially vulnerable to the toxins and can die after eating only a few berries. The roots are deadly, and you should wear gloves if pulling the plant while it's alive (the juices can harm the skin). To learn more about pokeweed, click here for The Ohio State University's "Ohio Perennial and Biennial Weed Guide."

Mulberries attract Cedar Waxwings too...
In late May and Early June the mulberries in our yard start to ripen, and they are the first berries to welcome back the waxwings, but their season is short, and by July, they are gone, which makes pokeweed so perfect. It lures the Cedar Waxwings back in, and we get to listen to them all the way through the end of summer and early autumn.

A Cedar Waxwing sits in one of our mulberry trees. He's not looking for fruit in the tree. It's been gone for a long time. He's looking at the pokeweed bushes near the tree...

Spotted Cucumber Beetle eating a Common Pokeweed berry...

"Green bug with black spots on its wings" is all it took to find this little bug in a Google search. It's a Spotted Cucumber Beetle (Diabrotica undecimpunctata), and it's really common. I've seen it a lot in the past, but never knew its name. I found out it's a native species but can be quite a pest. Wikipedia says,

"...it looks very much like a green ladybug. However, unlike the ladybug, cucumber beetles are not considered beneficial insects. They are sucking invaders which harm crops and ornamental plants."

"Sucking invaders?" Did I read that right? It's not the usual language you see on Wikipedia, and it made me laugh, but after reading more about them, I found out they are no laughing matter and can cause extensive crop damage on anything from cucumbers, melons, and squash (all members of the cucurbits family) to corn and beans. Adults favor stems, leaves and buds of all members of the cucurbits family. They attack and overwinter in corn and bean fields, and the larva, known as the "corn rootworm," eats the roots of corn, peanuts, small grains, and wild grasses (source: The Center for Integrated Pest Management, North Carolina State University, here).

...all that...and the only reason I started photograph him was because I thought his yellowish-green and chartreuse wings looked cool against the dark purple of the Common Pokeweed (Phytolacca americana) berry...

Hey, Spotted Cucumber Beetle, what are you doing on a Pokeweed berry? You should be on a cucumber...or a pumpkin, a gourd maybe, or a watermelon...or any other type of squash!

I watched this guy for quite a while, and he was definitely eating this berry. Every now and then he would wander away to another part of the plant, but he would always return to this berry. It was the only berry with a hole in it. I don't know if he created the hole, or if our resident Catbird poked a hole in the berry and the Spotted Cucumber Beetle was taking advantage of a good thing...

You can't really tell, but after he lifted his head out of the hole, he was covered in purple Pokeweed berry juice and had to take time out to clean his antenna and face.

I tried to find out if the Spotted Cucumber Beetle had a predisposition for Pokeweed berries, but I found nothing. I did however, learn how just how poisonous a Pokeweed berry is to a humans. According to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (click here), eating just 10 berries can cause headache, abdominal pain, and severe diarrhea...so don't eat Pokeweed berries any time soon! The roots are the most poisonous part of the plant, followed by the leaves and stems. The berries are the least toxic. Eating large quantities of the plant can result in death from respiratory failure (source: Ohio Perennial & Biennial Weed Guide, here).

...yum! Going in for more!

The Spotted Cucumber Beetle isn't the only creature that likes Pokeweed berries, Cedar Waxwings and Gray Catbirds love them too. Pokeweed started popping up around our yard about 3 or 4 years ago...and the Cedar Waxwings and Gray Catbirds soon followed. Last year and this year a pair of catbirds visited our yard daily, sitting in the tall pokeweed plants singing and plucking off the berries one at a time. Maybe the catbird punctured the berry and the cucumber beetle benefited, or maybe this little bug really digs the fruit and created his own hole. I'll watch next year and see if any more show up and chomp away at the pokeweed berries...

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.