Migrating, breeding, molting, migrating. While Gray Catbirds are resident year around along the Atlantic Coast up into Massachusetts, the vast majority leave NYC and head south come the fall.
Before that, they molt into their basic, non-breeding plumage. This one in Prospect Park is in the midst of shaking out the old and growing in the new.
Really wanted a photo of the bird’s cinnamon vent — it’s secret underside, if you will — but that didn’t happen. In the first and second pictures, you can just see one of those underside feathers.
You have to search hard to see one of these during the winter here, but then comes that day in the spring and suddenly they’re everywhere, mewing and squawking.
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This work by Matthew Wills is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
I grew up with catbirds living and breeding in our yard in south Jersey in the summer, and never saw the cinnamon vent until long after I’d moved to Brooklyn. Amazing how well those birds preserved their privacy.
Hard place to see on a under-story specialist.