Hobbies And Interests
Northern Mockingbird Description
This North American representative of the mockingbird genus is primarily a resident of the central and southern U.S., though it does range farther north with some frequency. In body form, the bird resembles a leaner, slighter thrush or thrasher with a smallish head and bill and long legs and tail. Adults are typically grayish on back and head with a pale-slate or white belly. The head shows a thin black eye-mask. The wing feathers and tail feathers are mostly black with white streaks; a mockingbird in flight reveals particularly noticeable white patches on the dorsal and ventral sides of its wings. Overall, northern mockingbirds resemble the two North American shrikes, but those predatory songbirds have shorter legs, heavier heads and thick, curve-tipped bills.
Food Habits
The diet of a typical northern mockingbird undergoes strong seasonal shifts. In spring and summer, the birds feed heavily on insects, including bees, ants, butterflies, grasshoppers and wasps. From late summer through autumn and winter, mockingbirds rely more on fruits. Mockingbirds rely on a variety of important fruiting shrubs and vines throughout their range, including sumac, hackberry, Virginia creeper, elderberry, grape and fig, according to "American Wildlife and Plants: A Guide to Wildlife Food Habits." The Cornell Lab of Ornithology also notes that mockingbirds occasionally lap up the sap exuded from pruning cuts on trees. In Florida, mockingbirds relish the berries of the invasive, exotic shrub-tree Brazilian pepper and help spread the plant by dispersing its seeds.
Foraging Behavior
Northern mockingbirds forage in thickets, hedges, open woodlands, savannas and shrublands. They may pursue insects on the wing or nab them on the ground. As active and ambitious in their pursuit of food as they are defending nests from other animals, northern mockingbirds have even been observed snatching up small lizards.
Other Mockingbirds
Many other mockingbird species inhabit the Americas, ranging as far south as Patagonia. Most exhibit similar food preferences as the northern mockingbird. The critically endangered Socorro mockingbird, endemic to one of the Revillagigedo Islands off the western coast of Mexico, forages for the fruit of certain shrubs, hunts insects and scavenges the remains of crabs.