Young Brown Thrasher Taking a Bath
As I sat on the porch, being completely lazy, watching Bluebirds, Brown Thrashers, and Carolina wrens, a female or juvenile Ruby-throated Hummingbird zhroomed up – with that low, thrumming hum that always brings an involuntary shudder to the back of my neck when one comes close – and visited the blooms of the lantana and other flowering plants in the planters. It checked out the coral flowers of the New Guinea impatiens but seemed uninterested in them, hummed over my head and around my shoulders, hovered in front of my face for a few seconds, then to the planters on the other side of me – and then zipped away.
Meanwhile a juvenile Eastern Phoebe with a mottled gray breast had flown into the branches of the Savannah holly beside me and begun hunting from low branches there, silently. Its manner was shy and a little tentative, but it seemed to be growing in confidence – though I’m probably reading more into its behavior than I should. It also came very close, and seemed undisturbed by my presence, staying right around me to hunt for several minutes, bobbing its tail as it sat on a branch, flying off to catch an insect, and returning to a slightly different spot.
Two Blue-gray Gnatcatchers chased each other through the pecan trees and down into the wax myrtles, calling spee-spee. Two Chipping Sparrows sat among the shimmering leaves of a river birch, a juvenile begging from an adult. All the small birds are hard to see and follow in the dense foliage when they’re moving around. But one of the Gnatcatchers came out into the leaves on the end of a water oak branch right over my head – very pretty, crisp, silvery-gray, with black down the middle of the upturned tail framed by white on the edges. The tree is loaded with small acorns – and there are lots of pecans, too. All the heat and rain seem to be making for an abundant year of all kinds of fruit and nuts.
Three juvenile Brown Thrashers seemed playful under the wax myrtles and lauropetelum. They chased each other in and out of the branches, tails often raised, and then turned away abruptly to spend time alone, tossing up flecks of mulch and eating. A Robin ran across the grass – running and stopping and looking around, bob-bob-bobbin, and joined another Robin, two Brown Thrashers and a feisty juvenile Carolina Wren, all foraging in the mulch around one of the pecan trees. Seemed to be a popular place. Two Mourning Doves flew in with a whistle of wings and joined the others hunting and pecking in the mulch.
One of the young Brown Thrashers hopped up onto the rim of a bird bath, looked around a few seconds, and then hopped into the water and took a good splashing bath, dipping down into the water several times, fluttering, sending water furiously flying. Lots of gray feathers showed in its face and sides and rump, and its head still looked kind of fluffy and gray, with that slightly stunned and uncertain look of a young bird – not quite knowing what to expect next, maybe.
I don’t think the Thrasher was really finished with its bath when an imperious looking Robin flew up to the rim of the bird bath and sat there staring down at it like a bossy adult – only my imagination, I’m sure. But the young Thrasher paused uncertainly in its bathing, then reluctantly hopped up to the rim and flew away. The Robin continued just to sit and look around, and never even took a drink before it flew away, too.