Mockingbirds and thrashers | Mimidae

Spotlijsters | Sinsontes

Medium-sized, slender songbirds with a long tail, sturdy legs and a straight to strongly curved bill, with which many species work the leaf litter on the ground: turning leaves, digging into the soil and rummaging under shrubs. The family owes its name to mimicry; many species copy the calls and song phrases of their neighbours and weave in other sounds as well. The song is long and varied, in the mockingbirds with phrases repeated two or three times before the bird moves on to the next. They defend their territory fiercely and attack cats, snakes and people that come too close to the nest. The nest is a sturdy cup of twigs low in a dense, often thorny bush. The family is confined to the Americas and Mexico is its richest country, with mockingbirds, most species of the genus Toxostoma in dry scrub and desert, and the Blue Mockingbird as an endemic of the interior. Cozumel has its own Toxostoma species that has all but vanished, the Black Catbird is restricted to the coast and islands of the Yucatán Peninsula, and the Grey Catbird comes from the north to winter.