Feathered Characters

     The last couple of evenings at home, while sitting out on a lawn chair, I've noticed a Carolina wren going to roost for the night in a flap of our picnic table umbrella.  An unusual place for a nightly roost, I thought, until I remembered this is a Carolina wren.  This species of wren does all kinds of odd things, like nesting in outdoor grills, deserted flower pots, pockets of pants on washlines, utility sheds, stone walls and other odd places.  So why not a Carolina roosting in a table umbrella?    
     Each bird and mammal has a personality of its own, making it more interesting to associate with.  And three kinds of small birds that raise young in southeastern Pennsylvania, as elsewhere, including Carolina wrens, yellow-breasted chats and gray catbirds, seem to have loads of character.  And many Carolina wrens and gray catbirds live in older suburban areas with their many bushes and trees where they are most easily seen, heard and enjoyed by most people. 
     These species also have other characteristics in common, including rearing offspring in bulky, cup nests of tiny twigs, rootlets and grass placed in dense, overgrown thickets of vines, shrubbery, saplings and other vegetation in woodland edges, hedgerows and stream edges.  They all have large beaks and long tails for their sizes.  They are all energetic most of the time, and have unusual, diagnostic songs.  And because these species are shy and skulking in the underbrush, they are heard more often than seen in the impenetrable, protective thickets they summer in.
     Carolina wrens are the largest wren in the eastern United States, where they are permanent residents.  Both genders have attractive, warm-brown feathering and males of this species sing loud, cheery chants the year around, and most any time of day.  They cheer many a mid-winter's day when no other bird song is heard. 
     Carolina wrens search for invertebrate food low in vegetative tangles near the ground, and poke for it on the ground under thickets and tangles.  On the ground they move in vigorous, jerky hops.
     Yellow-breasted chats are olive-brown above, with yellow chests and white bellies.  They raise young in brushy tangles in most of North America, but winter in Mexico and Central America.  Chats have been designated as belonging to the New World warbler family of birds, but they may not be warblers at all.  They certainly don't look like warblers.  In fact, no one seems to know what family they are in because of their being so unique.  They imitate the calls and songs of other bird species, as do members of the mimidae family, which includes gray catbirds and northern mockingbirds.  And they are long-legged like thrashers, which are other kinds of mimidae.  And like mimidae, chats consume invertebrates and berries.
     Like male mockingbirds, male chats have unusual song habits.  Mockers often sing at night through summer, with a variety of loud notes, many of which are imitations of sounds they have heard in their neighborhoods.  Sometimes male mockers sing while in floppy flight above their overgrown nesting territories, all of which draws attention to themselves to attract a mate for rearing offspring.  Male chats, too, fly in loose, sloppy flight, though it is controlled, above the thickets of their nesting territories while uttering a series of loud cackles, clucks, whistles and hoots to attract and hold a mate for raising babies.     
     Gray catbirds are so common, they seem to be in every patch of shrubbery.  Being mimics in the mimidae family, they sing the songs of several kinds of birds, making some people think there are several types of birds on their lawn when there is only a single male catbird, who has his own series of delightful songs.  This species even sings at dusk until the sky is almost completely dark. 
     Gray catbirds blend into the gray shadows of thickets where they are difficult to spot, but where the males sing seemingly ceaselessly at times.  They often sing so softly it seems they are singing to themselves to keep themselves company.     
     Sometimes when I mow the grass on our lawn, a catbird or two watches the process, which puzzled me at first.  But when the mower stirred up little, brown moths, the catbirds were right on those insects to eat them.
     Catbirds also run and stop, run and stop on short-grass lawns, much as American robins do.  In that way the catbirds are picking up invertebrates from those lawns. 
     These species of small birds are big in character, providing entertainment to those who see them in their native habitats.  They are pretty, lively birds with lots of interesting personality.