Native plants for a Cape Cod garden

Living here on Cape Cod has enabled me to observe several types of wild birds such as woodpeckers, flickers and hummingbirds for the first time in my life. I am also reading “The Bird” by Colin Tudge so I guess you could say I have something of a mild obsession with birds right now. I love the way birds kick up the dirt to find bugs, or hop backwards and sideways at the suet feeder. This hopping behaviour looks silly but is deadly serious, they do it to evade predators.  One bird that has recently migrated here for the spring is particularly endearing, the Gray Catbird. The bird guides say that they are supposed to be shy, but the ones I encounter seem far more curious than other birds, almost as if they want to “hang out” with humans. They are called catbirds because of their catlike calls. The other sounds they make are actually imitations of other birds. This would explain why I can never tell which call is coming from where in the trees! There are here for the summer after wintering in the Southern States, Mexico, the Caribbean or Central America.

Looking for more information that might shed some light on Catbirds’ behaviour towards humans, I came across an article on the Smithsonian National Zoological site on Catbirds, and from all the reader responses, it appears that the catbirds’ sociability is quite common. The 100-odd responses are a great source of field research. Described as: “following”, “thanking” (for a water refill)  and “watching” people for entertainment – catbirds definitely appear to have a great deal of intelligence. This is one of my favorite posts from the Smithsonian article Sitting in the Catbird Seat : “Catbirds must surely be one of the most curious and least fearful of songbirds. Walking around a wildlife sanctuary in New England one summer I was startled by the behavior of the catbirds there, they seemed absolutely fascinated by me, hopping from one hedge to another to peer closely at me and acting for all the world as though they were trying to recall where they had seen me before. The intensity of their attention was a little eerie.”