The nest is a ragged mass of sticks, weed stems, grasses, leaves, and twigs. Banded birds usually return to the place of banding. The gray catbird uses dense thickets of shrubby edge habitat for both nesting and foraging. The habitat niche breadth is fairly large, meaning that gray catbirds use a wide variety of foliage densities and shrub layers. The gray catbird uses dense, shrubby vegetation for all activities.
Snakes are major predators on gray catbird nestlings, as are rats, foxes, and domestic cats.
In Pennsylvania, gray catbirds were present in clearcut stands of aspens and oak-pine. Gray catbirds were encountered more often than expected in 75 percent clearcut aspen stands and were not encountered in uncut stands of either aspens or oaks.