[Fictionary] the catbird seat

[Amy Smift]

I usually see catbirds in our backyard because I spend more time looking 
out at the backyard, and I usually see our dogwoods in the front yard 
because they are trees and can't go anywhere else, but I'm not sure if 
I've ever seen the two together.  Maybe?  Now I'll definitely keep an eye 
out and try to get a picture if I ever spot a conjunction.

-Amy

On Fri, 3 Jul 2026, eLLioTT morEton wrote:

> Hi, Pierre et al.,
>
> For the last twenty-five years or so, I have kept a lookout for, but
> never actually seen, a catbird in a dogwood.  The town where I live
> has oodles of both, but they don't co-occur, at least, not when I'm
> looking.
>
> Regards,
> Elliott
>
> On Fri, 3 Jul 2026, Pierre Abbat wrote:
>
>> "Catbird seat" is a double stormy petrel. "Only a seat can be catbird, 
>> and the
>> only thing you can do with the catbird seat is be sitting in it." (Where 
>> is
>> petreleum jolly these days?) I recently found out what a literal catbird 
>> seat
>> is.
>> 
>> https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/372869384
>> A few weeks ago, I observed a bird that turned out to be a catbird, 
>> sounding
>> more like the mockingbird it is than a cat. I then looked up the phrase
>> "catbird seat". There are three kinds of catbirds: the American catbirds,
>> which are mockingbirds, the Australian and New Guinean catbirds, which 
>> are
>> bowerbirds, and the Abyssinian catbird, which belongs to a family I don't 
>> know
>> much about. The phrase comes from an Australian catbird. Many Australian
>> catbirds don't build bowers even though they are bowerbirds, but the 
>> tooth-
>> billed catbird of east coast Queensland builds a bower around a tree. 
>> When he
>> finds a female who likes his bower, she sits in the catbird seat.
>> 
>> I've also added one to my collection of descriptions of the empty set: 
>> the set
>> of all catbirds who have ever eaten mousebirds. The only catbird that
>> encounters mousebirds is the Abyssinian, but the Abyssinian catbird eats
>> fruits and insects, not birds.
>> 
>> Pierre
>> -- 
>> The gostak pelled at the fostin lutt for darfs for her martle plave.
>> The darfs had smibbed, the lutt was thale, and the pilter had nothing 
>> snave.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>