Mockingbirds and thrashers | Mimidae

Spotlijsters | Sinsontes

Medium-sized, slim songbirds with a long tail, sturdy legs and a slightly decurved bill, much used on the ground in leaf litter: turning leaves, chopping into the soil and rummaging under bushes. The family takes its name from mimicry; many species pick up the calls and song phrases of their neighbours and work frogs, insects and mechanical noises in among them. The song is long and repetitive, each phrase delivered two or three times over before the bird moves to the next, and a male's repertoire goes on growing for as long as he lives. They defend their territories fiercely and in the open, taking on cats, snakes and people that come too near the nest. The nest is a solid twig cup low in a dense, often thorny shrub. In winter many species switch to berries and hold a feeding territory then as well. The family is confined to the Americas and the Caribbean; not one species occurs naturally in Europe, and the few European records are of transatlantic vagrants.