Figure 1 – Gray catbird, Fresh Pond Reserve, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Arguably – all right very arguable-  for the cat lover the ultimate bird is the gray catbird, which fills the forest and urban parks with it meowing sound.  Actually, you would never fool either me or my cat with this, but let’s pretend.  The name catbird seems an oxymoron for someone brought up with the world view of Sylvester and Tweetie Pie – “I  taut I saw a puddy cat.”   Well, all that I can say to this is “Sufferin succotash.”  In the canine world the order of things is preserved.  There are not dogbirds, no woods filled with avian barking.  There are however, as there should be, bird dogs.

I will confess that I have always had a certain fondness for this unpretentious gray bird. And I have always been pleasantly amused by their feline screeching. Last Friday I sought out a group that was inhabiting the woods between Fresh Pond and the golf course.  I took several photographs, but in the end was most please by the photograph of Figure 1 which shows a chirping, or is it meowing, catbird from below looking up into a pleasing early spring canopy.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 200 mm, Aperture Priority AE mode, 1/1250th sec at f/7.1 with no exposure compensation.