A Surprising Hermit Thrush Call
February’s gift to us this year has been a string of suddenly warm, spring-like days, and we’ve been having lunch on the porch most of this week. Today it was cloudy with no hint of rain, just softly gray, and mostly rather quiet. We lingered for a while after eating, and the quiet chup calls of a Hermit Thrush began to emerge from trees on the southeast edge of the yard – not quite close enough to see it, but I could imagine it well.
The Hermit Thrush is one of my favorite winter birds, and this winter we’ve been lucky enough to have one staying with us for the season. It often comes out to forage on the leaf-covered ground in the back yard not far from the house – a pale brown bird with a spotted breast and throat, and a reddish tail. Its shape is similar to that of a robin, and it usually stands with its head tilted upward in a watchful way. When alarmed, it might fly up to a low branch and sit there, flicking its wings and raising and lowering its tail, and calling its unobtrusive chup.
A few minutes later, when we were just about to go inside, there was another rather loud, almost rough-edged call that I did not recognize at all. It was something like wreee, a rising note with a metallic quality. I tried the Merlin app on my phone – and, to my surprise, it immediately identified the call as a Hermit Thrush.
I always think of a Hermit Thrush as being so graceful and lovely in every way, it was hard to associate it with this call. Its song is famously ethereal, and the winter chup sounds quiet and low. But this afternoon I did a little research, and discovered, indeed, a recording of a Hermit Thrush call just like the new one I’d heard. It’s described in slightly different ways by different sources, but usually something like a nasal, rising weeh or vreeh. It seems to be heard mostly in winter, but it’s not completely clear what the purpose of the call is.Sometimes I forget how often I am “watching” birds by listening to their songs and calls – and not always seeing them at all. And yet hearing is, in a way, another way of seeing. So learning a call that’s new and different is always interesting, and it adds a new touch to even the most familiar landscape – and a new dimension to even the best bird friends.