Saturday, July 3, 2010

Better Catbird

I think Sue felt sorry for me on my last post, since I wasn't able to share with you any decent picture(s) of a gray catbird (Dumetella carolinensis).

Or maybe she felt challenged, and if she did, she certainly rose to it.




She went outside the other morning and took real pictures, actually decent ones--and she agreed to let me post some of them. So here you go.









. . . Of course, left to my own devices, this is about what I would have come up with, if my Uncle Richard hadn't already come up with it long ago.





2 comments:

Liberty Stoneware said...

Oh, how I miss the catbirds I used to have around my house when I lived in DE. Now that I am in NC, I have not seen any catbirds, and miss their call. Some of the mockingbirds make similar sounds, but it doesn't quite cut it!

Julianna Schroeder said...

Thank you for the comment--it's funny how we miss the sounds of particular bird calls. I rank it right up there with unique scents that are particular to a time and place (the smell of a wood fire in late autumn; the scent of lilacs in the spring).

I can close my eyes and remember--with heart-tugging clarity--the songs of canyon wrens and curve-billed thrashers, which I knew from my few years living in Arizona. I consider this phenomenon of sensory-emotional memory to be darned close to outright magic.

You know what I mean?

Julie