Northern mockingbird, the state bird of Texas

How to recognize it

The northern mockingbird is a slim, long-tailed songbird about 8 to 10 inches long. It is plain gray above and paler below, and males and females look the same. Big white wing patches and white outer tail feathers flash when it flies, and young birds have streaked chests.

Its song is a long run of phrases, each repeated three or more times, many of them borrowed from other birds and from mechanical sounds. Unmated males may sing all night.

How it lives

Over a year, the mockingbird eats roughly half insects and half fruit, taking beetles, grasshoppers and caterpillars in summer and switching mostly to berries in fall and winter. It is fiercely territorial: both males and females sing in fall to hold winter feeding territories, and nesting birds will dive at cats and even people.

Where to see one in Texas

The mockingbird lives year-round throughout Texas, in almost every kind of habitat, from desert and forest to cities, especially open ground with dense shrubs, such as parks, farms and suburbs. Texas Parks and Wildlife calls it the most commonly noticed bird in the state. Look for it on rooftops, wires and shrub tops in towns and on farmland in any season, and listen for it during the spring breeding season.

Common, but declining

The mockingbird is of low conservation concern, with a breeding population of about 43 million. Even so, the North American Breeding Bird Survey shows a decline of about 0.7 percent a year between 1966 and 2019, roughly 30 percent in all.

The state bird since 1927

The Texas Federation of Women’s Clubs asked the Legislature to make the mockingbird the state bird, and it did so in 1927. Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi and Tennessee have chosen the same bird.