Today, walking through the south end of the creek woods, and stopping periodically to listen to birds, I heard this lovely, delicate song--three notes, slightly accented on one, a "rest" of the same length as the notes, and then seven more notes. And again. And again. Having listened to the bird song CDs I thought it sounded "thrushlike" but I haven't listened to those for a long time and I certainly didn't know which.
At Owl, while photographing sparrows (including white-throated, which I hadn't seen this winter until today) I heard a different call note from the cedar across the water. Then I saw a spotty-breasted bird with a reddish-brown tail coming to water, very shyly. Fox Sparrows do that, and have the same reddish tail, but they move like sparrows, and this didn't.
That thin beak doesn't belong to a sparrow, for one thing, and the way it moved in the little cedar tree and even at the water....and besides, the face is all thrush. Only one of the brown-backed thrushes winters this far north--the Hermit Thrush.
It kept flitting and twitching and acting altogether jittery--something I remember the Swainson's Thrush doing, as well. But I was able to take several more pictures that came out very distinct.
.This is the best of them; that blurry bit in the foreground is some tall grass I was shooting through.
Now that I've heard the Hermit Thrush's song, which is considered one of the most beautiful--I have to agree it's ethereal...so quietly perfect. But it has to be a very quiet day--it was nearly windless when I was in the woods.
