Legendary 1940s and 1950s baseball announcer Red Barber said that he first heard the phrase sitting in the catbird seat during a poker game in Cincinnati during the Great Depression. An opposing player, Frank Koch, kept raising the stakes and eventually won the pot with a pair of aces. Koch said to Barber, “Thank you, Red. I had those aces from the start. I was sitting in the catbird seat.” Barber went on to popularize the phrase during his broadcasts, often using it when a hitter had three balls and no strikes on him.
But what does this expression have to do with an actual catbird (Dumetella carolinensis)? A male catbird often sings from within a dense shrub or brambles or even perched in a low tree. From this secure position, he can sing with abandon. So, a person in the catbird seat is in a good spot.
For a foraging catbird, a good spot is most often on the ground in dense shrubs or tangles. In fact, I recently heard rustling in a flower bed along the Alewife Brook. I peered into the shrubbery and caught a glimpse of a catbird rummaging on the ground among the stalks.
You can see gray catbirds in much of North America. When I looked through my catbird photos for this article, I discovered that I had taken catbird photos all over the U.S. and Canada—often in touristy places where people abounded. It is not surprising then that William Brewster wrote that catbirds show almost “no fear of man.” Ornithologist Edward Howe Forbush said: “Whenever anything is going on the Catbird is always ‘hanging around’; he peers out from some leafy shelter to see what is happening.”
Catbirds migrate north to our region in April or May. They arrive about a week earlier than they did merely a decade ago. Since male and female catbirds look almost identical, researchers could not tell by sight whether males or females arrived first. Scientists in Pennsylvania solved this problem by using DNA from captured birds to determine their sex. They discovered that, unlike many species, male and female catbirds arrive at the same time, but older birds arrive first.
Males establish territories by singing energetically. The male’s song consists of many different phrases woven together—some of these phrases imitate the songs and calls of other birds. The more varied the song, the more successful the male will be in finding a mate. His showy chatter indicates to the female that he is experienced, and it warns rival males that he occupies the territory.
Most songbirds produce recognizable songs that they learn from a parent and sing endlessly. Catbirds are different. They are mimics. Mockingbirds may be the more famous mimics, but catbirds have a larger repertoire. Ornithologist Donald Kroodsma estimates that a mockingbird has about 100 different song units stored in its brain, compared with 200 to 400 for a catbird. Mockingbirds copy and repeat sounds four or more times, while catbirds string together long jumbles of notes and phrases, including bird songs, frog croaks, and car alarms, never repeating anything back-to-back. For this reason, they are sometimes called scatbirds.
Ornithologists recorded one catbird singing 170 different phrases in a 4.5-minute song. Even catbird chicks babble like human babies learning to talk. Ornithologist Edward Howe Forbush reported in 1929 that a catbird near a cemetery in Fall River learned to sing the first three phrases from the bugle call “Taps,” traditionally performed at military funerals.
Both male and female catbirds make a catlike mew when startled, threatened, or interrupted. For a number of years, a catbird lived in a berry bush in my yard. When I’d drive up in my car, I’d hear a hidden bird call mew several times from a nearby bush.
After pairing up in spring, the female builds a nest in dense vegetation, usually a few feet above the ground. The nest is a cup consisting of twigs, straw, roots, hair, grass and anything else that seems favorable. The nests in my yard usually contained human discards, such as candy wrappers or pieces of plastic. The female often lays three or four eggs, which hatch in two weeks. After another two weeks, the chicks leave the nest, but the parents still feed them for another two weeks.
Catbirds stay in our area until September or October when they migrate to the southern United States, the Caribbean, Mexico or Central America. A few hardy souls may linger into the winter.
Soon the catbirds that have spent the summer rummaging through our gardens will head south. But next spring, they will be back. If you hear one singing its elaborate song, you will know immediately who is sitting in the catbird seat.
A stronger
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