Guessing "cat" was not silly. It is a very good impression, and the catbird delivers it from exactly where a lost cat would be hiding: low, deep in cover, out of sight. You were not bad at this. You were fooled by a professional.
In North America, a meow from a shrub or hedge is almost always a Gray Catbird, a slim gray songbird named for its catlike mew. In fall, after most catbirds have left, a meow from a tree trunk can be a passing Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. A long meow from overhead near water or a big parking lot is usually a gull.
That is the mew. One slurred, nasal note, a pause, then another, like a cat asking to be let in and not expecting much. If that matches what you heard from the shrubs, you have your answer. The rest of this page is for the meows that do not quite fit: wrong season, wrong height, wrong time of day.
(And if the "cat call" you heard was actually a two-note wolf whistle, that is a different bird entirely.)
Is the hedge meowing while you read this? Open Wings & Whistles, record it, and check it against the catbird. Get the app free →
The catbird has two voices, and once you can tell them apart you can name the bird whether it is complaining or performing.
The first is the mew you just heard. It is a call, not a song (birders make this distinction for a reason: calls are short remarks, songs are speeches). A catbird gives it one note at a time, with gaps in between, from somewhere you usually cannot see: the middle of a forsythia, a honeysuckle tangle along a fence, the bramble at the back of the lot that nobody mows. The bird is in there. It can see you. It has opinions.
To confirm it in your own yard, give it thirty seconds and three questions. Where is it? (Inside a shrub, around chest height or lower, not up in a tree or overhead.) How often? (One mew, a pause, another, rather than one long continuous wail.) What else is it doing?
If the answer is singing, that is the second voice, and it sounds nothing like a cat. It is a long, halting ramble of squeaks, whistles, chuckles, and borrowed scraps of other birds, delivered like someone narrating their own thoughts while looking for their keys.
The trick to keep, because you will need it again later: a catbird says each phrase once and moves on. Its cousin, the Northern Mockingbird, says each phrase over and over, usually two to six times, before switching. Squeak, whistle, chuckle, squeal: catbird. Squeak-squeak-squeak, whistle-whistle-whistle: mockingbird. It works from a hundred feet away with your eyes closed, which is the best kind of rule.
Catbirds nest in shrubby edges, thickets, overgrown gardens, and hedgerows across much of the US, mostly from May through the end of summer. They spend a lot of time hidden, though now and then one hops out boldly and flicks its tail at you. When you do get a look, it is all gray with a neat black cap, like a bird dressed for a poetry reading, plus a rusty patch under the tail. More on its recordings and look-alikes is on the Gray Catbird species page.
And if the song struck you as less like a bird and more like a small robot muttering to itself, you are in good company. We wrote up the catbird's droid-like song separately, so this page can stay on the meow.
Now the calendar matters. Catbirds head south between late August and November, and by the end of October most of them have left the northern half of the country (a few stubborn ones stay, and the FAQ below has the details). So if your catbird should have left by now and something is still meowing, look at where the sound is coming from. If it is not inside a shrub but up on a tree trunk, you may be listening to a woodpecker.
The Yellow-bellied Sapsucker breeds in northern forests and moves through the East in fall, roughly September and October, on its way to wintering grounds across the Southeast. A passing sapsucker can let out a nasal mew, and the first time one comes out of an oak at you, you will scan the branches for a stuck kitten. You will not hear it on every October walk, but knowing it exists keeps the meow on the trunk from leaving you stumped.
On sound alone, the sapsucker and the catbird are hard to separate: two nasal complaints. Position settles it. A catbird mews from inside cover at shrub height. A sapsucker mews from a trunk, clinging upright to the bark the way woodpeckers do. While you are looking, check the bark for the bird's calling card: neat horizontal rows of small holes, drilled so the tree weeps sap the bird comes back to drink. Few things in a yard make tidy rows like that.
The same bird makes one more sound worth filing away for spring. It drums on trees in a stuttering rhythm, a quick burst followed by a few slower, uneven taps, like someone tapping out Morse code and losing their nerve halfway through. You can hear the drumming and see a photo on the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker species page.
The catbird and the sapsucker both meow at close range, from a bush or a trunk you could walk up to. If your meow is long and drawn out, carries a surprisingly long way, and comes from above (a rooftop, a light pole, the sky over a big-box parking lot), stop looking in the bushes. That is a gull.
You are not imagining the resemblance. The field guides list it as the gull's mew call: a long, plaintive, drawn-out meeew that sounds like a cat that has been stuck on the roof for three days and would like everyone to know. It is a separate sound from the sharp yelps and the big laughing call most people picture when they think "seagull."
Which gull depends on where you are standing. The American Herring Gull is the big one: year-round on the Great Lakes and the Northeast coast, and on coasts and big rivers almost everywhere in winter. Inland, though, your parking-lot meower is more likely a Ring-billed Gull, the smaller, commoner gull that works fast-food lots, ball fields, and landfills far from any ocean. For a backyard listener the difference matters less than the shape of the sound: long, from above, near open water or a lot of pavement. The Herring Gull species page has more of its calls side by side.
Three mews, three places: a shrub, a trunk, the sky. Drill them side by side until you can name the place before you name the bird. Download Wings & Whistles Google Play
Everything so far happens in daylight. After dark, the odds change, and the once-versus-repeated rule from the catbird section starts earning its keep.
If it is 2 a.m. and the "cat" is one item in a long medley (a whistle, a squeak, something that sounds suspiciously like a car alarm), and each item comes a few times before the bird moves on, that is a Northern Mockingbird. Mockingbirds sing at night, especially unmated males in spring and early summer, usually from a streetlight, a chimney, or the top of a tree. They are also mimics that can imitate cats, so a genuine meow inside the medley is not out of the question. Count the repeats and you have it.
If instead it is a single yowl, or a long, wavering, rising argument, and it comes from ground level and moves along the ground, it is probably not a bird at all. Real cats are loud at night (two of them disputing a fence line can sound like a horror film), and other mammals make noises that pass for a cat in the dark. A rough rule: ground level and moving along the ground, think mammal; from a roof, a wire, or a treetop, think bird.
Screams and shrieks are a separate case file. For those, see our guide to night sounds that are not cats.
The catbird's mew is one of the best first sounds to learn by ear. It is one note. It repeats. It comes with its own built-in memory aid (the bird's name). And catbirds are common enough in summer gardens that you will get to practice on the real thing within a week of learning it. It is also a gentle reminder that half of birding by ear is not "what made that sound?" but "where, when, and how many times?"
A two-minute drill, using the players on this page:
Saying the place out loud sounds silly, and it is the part that works: you are teaching yourself to listen for where a sound lives, not just what it sounds like. In the Wings & Whistles app, the lesson called The Mimic Trap puts the catbird next to the mockingbird and the Blue Jay so you can drill the once-versus-repeated rule properly, and Woodpeckers Beyond the Drum covers the sapsucker. If you want the bigger method behind all this, start with how to learn bird songs by ear. And if the meow turned out to be the gateway to a whole yard of odd noises, the catbird has plenty of company in our tour of weird bird sounds.
In North America it is almost always the Gray Catbird, which gives a slurred, nasal mew one note at a time, with pauses, from inside shrubs and hedges at chest height or lower. A long, drawn-out meow from overhead near water or a big parking lot is more likely a gull, and a mew from a tree trunk in fall can be a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker.
The Gray Catbird is named for its catlike mew, a nasal, complaining call that sounds remarkably like a house cat. It usually gives the mew from deep inside shrubs, which is why so many people go looking for a lost cat before they ever see the bird.
At night, a long medley that repeats each sound a few times before switching is usually a Northern Mockingbird, which sings after dark and can imitate cats. A single yowl from ground level is more likely a real cat or another mammal than a bird.
In early fall, yes. Gray Catbirds migrate south between late August and November, and most winter in the southeastern United States, the Caribbean, and Central America. A few now stay farther north, so a November meow in Ohio can still be a catbird that skipped the trip.
The Gray Catbird's mew is the closest match: nasal and slightly whiny, a lot like a kitten asking to be let in. The giveaway is the location, deep inside a shrub where no kitten could comfortably sit. A longer, louder, more drawn-out meow coming from above is more likely a gull's mew call.
Yes. In the UK, the Common Buzzard has a mournful, mewing call that is easily mistaken for a cat, often given as it soars overhead. In Australia, the Green Catbird is named for its catlike mewing, which some people liken to a crying baby.
Open any bird for its recordings, what to listen for, and the birds it gets mistaken for.
Turn the mew into a lesson. Drill the catbird in The Mimic Trap and the sapsucker in Woodpeckers Beyond the Drum, then go collect the regulars outside. Download Wings & Whistles Google Play
You step outside, hear a string of electronic beeps, burbles, and whistles, and your brain goes straight to a little astromech droid. You are not losing it: some birds really do sound like R2-D2. Here are the 4 most likely suspects and how to tell them apart by ear.
It is 2:00 AM. The house is quiet. Then: SQUEAK. SQUEAK. If you have landed here, you are probably hearing weird bird sounds at night and trying to decide whether to call a mechanic, a ghost hunter, or a birdwatcher.