Tonight, as I was moving between house and cook shed, a new voice caught my ear. I listened, narrowed it down to the thrush family, because of their amazing vocal capabilities, looked it up in Sibley's, and determined it to be a hermit thrush. Beautiful music.
We don't get a lot of thrushes around here; I think they prefer more mature hardwoods than what my coniferous woods has to offer. We do get Veeries, thank God! Their song is as ethereal as a bird song can get. But they won't be singing for a week or two.
The name "hermit thrush" is almost too descriptive. On some level I identify with a hermit-bird, one that shyly gives a beautiful song once in a while.
6 comments:
One of my very favorite birds.
We are lucky to have both veeries and hermit thrushes at Hasty Brook. Indescribable music.
I can identify the songs of common yard birds, but take me to the woods and I am helpless. I admire and envy those who have (retain) this kind of knowledge.
I am not a dedicated bird watcher, but there are two birds I love to hear. I actually like to hear the plain old Robin! It may be because it means spring to me. Also I love to hear the jungle like sounds of the Pileated Woodpecker. We have quite a few around here and I can close my eyes and imagine I am in a tropical rainforest.
Two winters ago a hermit thrush overwintered on the St. Paul Campus. I kept expecting it to disappear after each major cold spell, but it made it through the whole winter. (So now you have one good thing to equate to global warming)
A Hermit Thrush has a series of songs that it selects from-They intetionally make sure that each song is different from the previous one.
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