Birds

Mockingbird

Mimus · also called mockingbirds, northern mockingbird

Least Concern → omnivoreinsectivore Temperate grassland Temperate forest Coasts & shorelines

A mockingbird is a plain grey songbird with an extraordinary voice that is not its own. It builds its song out of imitations, running through the calls of dozens of other birds plus frogs, crickets, car alarms, and squeaky gates, each phrase repeated a few times, and it keeps adding new sounds for as long as it lives. An old male may have more than 200 song types.

Overview

Mockingbirds are the genus Mimus, about 17 species in the Americas, the best known being the northern mockingbird of North America. They are omnivores — insects in summer, fruit in winter — of open and edge habitats: scrub, grassland with shrubs, hedgerows, parks, and gardens. The northern mockingbird has spread far north over the past century, reaching New England and southern Canada.

The many-tongued mimic

Mimus polyglottos means “many-tongued mimic”. A male imitates 20 to 40 other bird species plus mechanical and animal sounds, and, unusually among songbirds, his repertoire grows throughout life rather than fixing in the first year. Unpaired males and birds under a full moon often sing loudly all night.

Fierce, and a place in history

A nesting mockingbird dive-bombs cats, hawks, and people near the nest, and Florida research showed the birds recognise individual humans who have threatened them before. The Galapagos mockingbirds Darwin collected, a different form on each island, pointed him toward evolution earlier than the finches did.

Status

Least Concern and stable — common, adaptable, and expanding, after a mid-century dip blamed partly on trapping for the cage-bird trade. A few island species are threatened, and the Socorro mockingbird of a small Mexican island is Endangered.

Mockingbird: common questions

Why do mockingbirds copy other sounds?

It is a display used mainly by males to attract mates and hold territory. A larger and more varied song repertoire signals to a female that a male is older, experienced, and has survived long enough to accumulate many sounds, and it may also help a male dominate rivals acoustically. Mockingbirds copy other birds because those are the sounds around them, but they will imitate anything distinctive and repeated, which is why urban mockingbirds pick up car alarms, sirens, and mechanical noises. The imitations are not used to deceive other species; they are raw material for building an impressive personal song.

Why does a mockingbird sing at night?

Night singing is done mostly by males that have not yet found a mate, and it peaks in spring and early summer and on bright moonlit nights. An unpaired male keeps advertising around the clock to maximise his chances of attracting a passing female, and the quiet of night lets his song carry further with less competition. Once a male is paired and breeding, night singing usually drops off. Artificial light and noise in cities may also encourage it. For a household kept awake by one, the bird is almost always a lone male, and the singing typically eases once the breeding season advances.

Do mockingbirds really attack people?

Yes, when defending a nest. During the two to three weeks that eggs and chicks are in the nest, a mockingbird parent will fly at, buzz, and sometimes strike the head of anything it sees as a threat within a few metres, including cats, dogs, larger birds, and people, and it will keep it up for as long as the intruder stays. Research at the University of Florida showed that urban mockingbirds learn to tell individual people apart and escalate their response to a specific person who has approached the nest before while ignoring strangers, an unusual degree of recognition in a small bird. The attacks are startling but rarely cause injury.

What is the difference between a mockingbird and a catbird or a thrasher?

All three belong to the same family, the Mimidae, the New World mimic thrushes, and all can imitate other sounds. The northern mockingbird is grey with white wing patches and outer tail feathers that flash in flight, sings in the open from a high perch, and repeats each phrase several times. The gray catbird is slate-grey with a black cap and a rusty patch under the tail, tends to sing from cover, mixes in a distinctive cat-like mewing call, and usually does not repeat phrases. Thrashers, such as the brown thrasher, are larger and browner with heavily streaked breasts and long curved bills, forage by sweeping leaf litter aside, and typically repeat each phrase twice.

Sources & further reading

Written by HideShark Editorial Team · reviewed by HideShark Science Desk. Published September 10, 2026. Last updated September 10, 2026.

Quick facts

Scientific name: Mimus
Diet: Insects, spiders, and other invertebrates gleaned from the ground and lawns in the warmer months, and fruit and berries in autumn and winter, with the northern mockingbird also taking small lizards and earthworms and, at feeders, suet and fruit
The many-tongued mimic: The northern mockingbird's scientific name, Mimus polyglottos, means many-tongued mimic, and a male can learn and reproduce the songs and calls of 20 to 40 other bird species, along with insect and amphibian sounds and mechanical noises such as car alarms, squeaky hinges, and phone ringtones, running through them in a long medley with each phrase repeated several times
A repertoire that grows for life: Unlike many songbirds, which fix their song in their first year, a mockingbird keeps adding new sounds throughout its life, and an old male may have a repertoire of over 200 distinct song types, with birds in different regions imitating whatever local birds and noises are around them
Singing at night: Mockingbirds, especially unpaired males and birds during a full moon, often sing loudly through the night in spring and summer, a habit that delights some people and exasperates others and that inspired songs and poems from the 19th century onward
Fierce for its size: A nesting mockingbird will repeatedly dive at and strike cats, dogs, hawks, snakes, and people that come near the nest, and studies in Florida found that mockingbirds quickly learn to recognise individual humans who have previously approached the nest and single them out for attack
Darwin's other birds: The mockingbirds Charles Darwin collected on the Galapagos, with a different form on each island group, struck him as more significant than the finches at the time, and his notes on them were among the first clear signs that led him toward the idea of species changing over time
A northern spread: The northern mockingbird has expanded its range well to the north over the past century, reaching New England and southern Canada, helped by milder winters, the planting of multiflora rose and other berrying shrubs, and the spread of suburban lawns and gardens
Range: The Americas, with the northern mockingbird across the United States, southern Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America, and the other Mimus species through South America and on the Galapagos, in open and semi-open habitats including scrub, desert edge, grassland with shrubs, forest edge, parks, gardens, hedgerows, farmland, and coastal thickets, generally avoiding dense unbroken forest.
Conservation status: Least Concern → ≈ The northern mockingbird is common, widespread, and assessed as Least Concern with a large and roughly stable population, and it adapts well to towns, suburbs, farmland, and roadsides. It underwent a decline in the mid-20th century, partly attributed to trapping for the cage-bird trade, which was once large, and to pesticide use, but it recovered and has since expanded northward. Several of the roughly 17 mockingbird species in the Americas are also secure, but a few island species are threatened, most seriously some of the Galapagos mockingbirds, and the Socorro mockingbird of a small Mexican island is Endangered in the wild