Northern Mockingbird

Overview

Northern Mockingbird: Medium-sized mockingbird with gray upperparts, paler gray underparts, and faint eyeline. Wings are gray-black with two white bars and large white patches visible when spread. The tail is long, gray, and edged with white. Legs and feet are black. Feeds on fruit and insects.

Range and Habitat

Northern Mockingbird: Breeds from northern California, eastern Nebraska, southern Ontario, and Maritime Canada southward. Spends winters in the southern part of range. Found in residential areas, city parks, farmlands, open country with thickets, and desert brush.

INTERESTING FACTS

The Northern Mockingbird is the state bird of Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Texas.
The Northern Mockingbird voraciously defends its territory, attacking intruders including house pets and even people.
The often observed behavior of birds flashing their white wing patches is still unexplained.
Theories include it being used to startle prey or intimidate predators.
A group of mockingbirds has many collective nouns, including an "echo", "exactness", "plagiary", and a "ridicule" of mockingbirds.

The Northern Mockingbird has a large range, estimated globally at 10,000,000 square kilometers. Native to the North America and nearby island nations and territories, this bird prefers temperate, subtropical, or tropical forest and shrubland ecosystems as well as rural gardens and degraded former forest areas. The global population of this bird is estimated at 45,000,000 individuals and does not show signs of decline that would necessitate inclusion on the IUCN Red List. For this reason, the current evaluation status of the Northern Mockingbird is Least Concern.