There are birds with beloved songs or calls. Veery (Catharus fuscescens), Carolina Wren (Thryothorus ludovicianus), Yellow Warbler (Setophaga petechia).
Common Loon (Gavia immer), Common Nightingale (Luscinia megarhynchos), Northern Bobwhite (Colinus virginianus).
The loon gives a “tremolo, a wavering call” when startled or to make itself known. Its famously melancholic wail is given to determine one another’s location.
Some “believe the thrushes,” Turdidae, “have the most beautiful bird songs.” BirdNote names Wood Thrush (Hylocichla mustelina) and Veery (Catharus fuscescens) as favorites. Thoreau called the former “our most accomplished songster.” The latter is named for the “veer” of its song. Then there’s Hermit Thrush (Catharus guttatus)—“often heard before it's seen”: oh, holy holy, ah, purity purity eeh, sweetly sweetly.
The bird is “Hermit” Thrush because of its “retiring ways.” It’s “most easily detected by its beautiful ethereal song.” I finally got pictures of one. In one of those pictures the bill is slightly open. I love bird pictures with open bills.
I wrote about birds I heard but didn’t see in my big year. Among them: Hermit Thrush. Thanksgiving I saw one and got pictures—still in my year. Also a Barred Owl, Downy Woodpeckers, Great Blue Heron, and an evasive Golden-crowned Kinglet.
I saw the thrush’s silhouette and assumed: American Robin (Turdus migratorius). About the same size. Occam’s Razor: simpler explanations are more likely—Robin over Hermit Thrush. The bird wasn’t the right color, reddish tail. “A contrasting reddish tail” distinguishes a Hermit Thrush, Sibley says. This “bird of dense forest understory” was in plain sight—albeit not facing me.
A Hermit Thrush isn’t unheard of, but this was my first time getting pictures. It’d be easy to walk past a Hermit Thrush. Instead I shared space with the American Nightingale.
Such a beautiful song the hermit thrush has! Thanks for sharing it.
As always, your photos are a pleasure for my eyes. You must be part bird whisperer to see all of these, and to catch so many with their beaks open💕
As a youthful noisemaker I learned to whistle through my hands, knowing nothing of loons. At eleven yo, a vacation to Lake Kipawa in southern Quebec finally introduced me to common loons. I was able to call them to our boats!
Your array of beautiful sounding birds, James, brought back memories of seeing many of them while growing up in NW Pennsylvania. My dad was an avid outdoorsman so my brother & I spent much time in the woods and on trout streams. Seeing Nightjars on dirt roads near farmland at dusk was a special memory for me of that time in my life. Again, James, I’m grateful to you for your dedication and expertise.