Spot Northern Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos)

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This medium-sized songbird has a long, thin bill with a hint of a downward curve, and long legs. Their wings are short, rounded, and broad, making the tail seem particularly long in flight, Mockingbirds are overall gray-brown, paler on the breast and belly, with two white wingbars on each wing. A white patch in each wing is often visible on perched birds, and in flight these become large white flashes. Diet and behavioral habits: These birds are common year round in Balboa Park, but numbers have declined since the turn of the century. They feed heavily on insects in late spring and summer, especially beetles, grasshoppers, caterpillars, ants, wasps, and others including spiders, snails, sowbugs, earthworms, and rarely crayfish and small lizards. Fall and winter diet leans heavily to berries, wild fruits, and a few cultivated fruits. Nesting habits: Nesting begins early, by late winter in southern areas. The nest is built in a dense shrub or tree, usually 3-10' above the ground, sometimes lower or higher (rarely up to 60'). Nest has bulky foundation of twigs supporting open cup of weeds, grass, leaves, lined with fine material such as rootlets, moss, animal hair, plant down. The male builds most of foundation, and the female adds most of lining.

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