Northern Mockingbird

Mimus polyglottos

rare
55 km/h
Least Concern

Memorizes every song in the neighborhood and remixes them at 2 a.m. The original streaming service.

Population: ~43–44 million mature individuals globally (Partners in Flight, 2020 estimate, via BirdLife DataZone/Cornell); population is DECLINING, not increasing — approximately 0.7%/year, a cumulative decline of roughly 30% from 1966 to 2019 in North America (BirdLife/Partners in Flight), even though some regional populations (Mexico, Caribbean) are stable.
Habitat: Open and semi-open habitats with scattered shrubs, hedges, or trees and low ground cover — parks, gardens, suburban yards, mowed lawns, farmland edges, and forest edges/second growth in the east; desert scrub and chaparral in the west. Generally avoids dense, unbroken forest.
Fun fact: Northern Mockingbirds are renowned vocal mimics — males maintain repertoires of roughly 43 to 203 distinct song types, drawn from other bird species' songs/calls and even mechanical sounds like car alarms or squeaky wheels, strung together into long, repeated phrases as part of their own song.
Range: Year-round resident across almost the entire continental United States, northern and central Mexico, the Bahamas, and the Greater Antilles; breeds north into southeastern Canada and west to the Pacific states, with some northernmost populations moving short distances south in winter. Introduced populations are established in Hawaii and Bermuda.
Diet: Omnivorous and seasonally flexible — arthropods (grasshoppers, beetles, ants, bees, wasps, spiders, caterpillars) and other invertebrates such as earthworms dominate in spring/summer; berries and fruit (mulberries, hawthorn, holly, blackberries) make up more of the diet in fall and winter; occasionally small vertebrates like lizards.
Size: 0.25 m
Wingspan: 0.35 m
Lifespan: 8 years

Northern Mockingbird

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