Thursday, May 03, 2007

hermit thrush

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:

Sue said...

One of my very favorite birds.

Lynne at Hasty Brook said...

We are lucky to have both veeries and hermit thrushes at Hasty Brook. Indescribable music.

Anonymous said...

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.

Elise said...

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.

Todd said...

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)

Larry said...

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.