How to Identify the Northern Mocking Bird when Birding

Part of the Video Series Birdwatching for Beginners

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Learn how to identify the Northern Mocking Bird when birding in this free bird watching video

Contact: www.massaudubon.org

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How to Identify the Northern Mocking Bird when Birding
Hello, welcome to Expert Village. My name is Wayne Petersen, director of the Massachusetts Audubon Society Important Bird Areas Program and we’re here this afternoon at the Daniel Webster Wildlife Sanctuary in Marshville, Massachusetts. Next we’re going to talk about backyard birding, a place where everybody has an opportunity to get involved and where many peoples interest in birding first begins. Behind me is a multi floral rose, lovely white blossoms, a nice fragrance at this time of the year and in the winter season, small red berries are hips. Unfortunately in many areas the multi floral rose is an exotic species and it’s invasive and it has a way of taking over other vegetation communities. Having said that, however, it’s also a plant that’s particularly enjoyed by the northern mocking bird of species that we often find in suburban situations. The mocking birds would sometimes place their rather bulky stick nests in the multi floral rose branches and in the winter time when the leaves are off the plant they will actively defend a multi floral rose thicket because they particularly like the rose hips as a source of food. So that it’s not at all uncommon to find a northern mocking bird or a northern mocking bird pair associated with this plant, so that in some cases we have to take the good with the bad or the bad with the good and in the case of the multi floral rose, it has some endearing qualities in spite of its aggressive botanical nature it is certainly is popular with one of our more beloved song birds the mocking bird.

About the Expert

Expert: Wayne R. Petersen is Director of the Massachusetts Important Bird Areas (IBA) Program at the Massachusetts Audubon Society and recipient of the American Birding Association’s Ludlow Griscom Award. Read More