Earlier yesterday morning when I checked out the front yard, all the usual suspects were around \u2013 Chickadees, Titmice, a pair of Downy Woodpeckers, Red-bellied Woodpecker, two Brown-headed Nuthatches, and a Mockingbird back and forth from the feeders, a pair of Eastern Bluebirds \u2013 the male several times sitting possessively on top of the bluebird house \u2013 and several White-throated Sparrows, Chipping Sparrows, Dark-eyed Juncos, Mourning Doves and Robins foraging on the ground. Among the ground birds was one Hermit Thrush, which flew to the cover of some wax myrtles when startled and stood there, raising and lowering its tail. Then \u2013 to my surprise \u2013 it flew again, this time into a Savannah holly tree right outside the window where I was standing. It hopped from branch to branch only inches away.<\/p>\n
It may be the closest I\u2019ve ever come to a Hermit Thrush, though I\u2019ve often watched one from not far away. It ate a holly berry, then hopped to another branch and stopped, with its back to me, looking over its shoulder with a white-ringed eye, its slender bill slightly tilted up. The spotted breast looked muted, and overall it was a fawn brown, rather dull color, except for the reddish tail \u2013 but the behavior and personality of a Hermit Thrush are intriguing. Even though it may come out into the open often and regularly, it looks the part of an eccentric hermit, wide-eyed and easily spooked. It stops and looks around frequently, flicks its wings and hops or runs with a characteristic gait. It\u2019s only and completely in the eye of the beholder, but to me a Hermit Thrush always looks slightly guilty and impish \u2013 but proud of itself.<\/p>\n
We rarely hear the hauntingly beautiful song of a Hermit Thrush here, since it\u2019s only here for the winter, so we get a somewhat different view of its life.<\/p>\n
Nervously, this one raised and lowered its cinnamon tail several times, then hopped to another branch and flew away, back toward the wax myrtles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Earlier yesterday morning when I checked out the front yard, all the usual suspects were around \u2013 Chickadees, Titmice, a pair of Downy Woodpeckers, Red-bellied Woodpecker, two Brown-headed Nuthatches, and a Mockingbird back and forth from the feeders, a pair of Eastern Bluebirds \u2013 the male several times sitting possessively on top of the bluebird […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=387"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":394,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387\/revisions\/394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}