Free Range Photography

On Thanksgiving day I walked up a nearby state park service road to the spot where my partner and I were lucky enough to discover an active Bald Eagle nest back in 2011. I have watched the nest every year since then and have marveled at the process of the parent eagles refurbishing the nest and then mating, incubating eggs, and rearing chicks. The nest is nearly 1/4 mile away from the watching spot, so the presence of onlookers has never bothered its inhabitants.

The eagles have not been successful at fledging a youngster the past two seasons for reasons we’ll never know, but before that the nest produced a single healthy chick almost every year since 2011, (and who knows how long before that) and once in 2015 produced two fledglings.

Nest refurbishment can start as early as November or December around here, but on this Thanksgiving day, no eagles were seen.

Instead, a good variety of other birds made my visit more than worthwhile, including three members of the thrush family: American Robin, Hermit Thrush, and my long time favorite, the Varied Thrush.

All three thrushes are more numerous around here in the winter, and while Robins and Hermit Thrushes do breed here in small numbers, Varied Thrushes leave the area in the summer and have their families elsewhere.

Thrushes are known for their beautiful songs, and all three I saw and heard that day have distinctive songs: the Hermit’s a sweet if slightly sad flute-like melody; the Robin’s rising and falling “cheerily cheer up” on repeat in the spring, but in the winter comprised of squeaky sputtering cries and muffled shrieks; and the Varied’s a gravelly one-note whistle in a minor tone, the last being my favorite early winter sound.

Robins are numerous and conspicuous all winter when huge flocks of them can be seen stripping berry-laden trees and shrubs of their fruit. Hermits and Varieds are more reclusive, skulking in small numbers in dark undergrowth.

Robins are reliably abundant every year, but numbers of Hermits and Varieds can wax and wane from year to year. Judging by the numbers I saw that day, it’s a good year for them. In our changing world where bird species are thinning dramatically if not completely disappearing, I’ll give thanks for any uptick in counts.

I’ll keep watching the eagle nest in hopes the numbers of thrushes are a good omen.