World Bird Wednesday XXX

                              A Good Thrashing

This last Thursday my chum Joe was up North visiting me at my Pine River digs . He's an avid follower of WBW so I suggested we travel over to Fish Point reserve where I could show him the levee's and wetlands that have been my recent photographic stomping grounds. Joe is a bird whistler. He tweets out these short little musical phrases that coax in birds from surrounding trees and bushes to come nearer, perch close by and join in with his whistling. It's akin to Tarzan calling in the jungle animals to help him out of a jam. Joe is a handy guy to have around if your looking for birds as his mere presence seems to attract the unusual. The weather was overcast and threatened rain. The temperature had gone from the upper nineties and dropped like a meteor in a matter of a few hours into the fifties. Rough winds had blown through and many a tree lay toppled over or broken to pieces along the back roads of Bay County. One such tree was resting half submerged in a creek that held close to the side of the road before escaping into Saginaw Bay. I caught a quick glimpse of a brown shape glide up and over the embankment where this Oak lay flattened. "What was that?" We said simultaneously. Joe had worked his mojo once again. I grabbed the camera and took a few steps over to the bank and as luck would have it a Brown thrasher (Toxostoma rufum) was frolicking there, leaping from trunk to limb to trunk again. Georgia's state bird, on furlough to Michigan gave us a solid minute of photo op's. Here are some of the moments we enjoyed and came away with.

 


The intensity of this eleven inch bird shocked me a little. The yellow/orange eye that stares madly from an otherwise drab countenance gives a clue to the more complicated personality wrapped tightly inside. Firstly, the Brown thrasher is a diva, a native singer of profound talent with thousands of melodic phrases at its beck and call. It's virtuosity is legendary among birders, a singer who saves its song for wooing a tree top lover in the spring of each year. The thrasher then remains strangely silent and elusive inhabiting the inner sanctums of it's hedge row and thicket hermitage. It is not heard from again except for a subdued whisper song, rarely experienced, and sung quietly to itself in the autumn.
For a Utube taste of Thrasher music click here.

One would be wise to use a little caution when examining a Brown thrashers nest as these birds have a long standing reputation for violently protecting their home turf. Accounts from researchers abound with harrowing tales of quick retreats as these warriors put their sharp beaks to good use stabbing at the eyes and temples of those who would dare to interfere with the nestlings. Here is one such reminiscence from a 1910 photographic expedition taken from Familiar Birds.
  "She (the Brown thrasher) left and then set up a loud cry of protest and defiance, which soon brought her mate to join in the attack. As I attempted to examine the young, both birds flew at me and attacked me savagely; they flew at my face, once striking a stinging blow close to my eye and drawing blood; within a few seconds I was struck on the side of my head, and we decided to withdraw from the scene of the battle, leaving the brave birds masters of the situation."
Even the revered Audubon painted a stirring picture of his experience seeing a Black snake foolishly attempting to rob a Thrasher nest of it's eggs. A complicated singer/assailant, the Brown thrasher more probably gets its last name from it's habit of threshing through leaf debris looking for insects rather than it's reputation as the welterweight champion of the underbrush.

Now it's time for World Bird Wednesday!

  

This is the home of World Bird Wednesday. A place for bird photographers from around the world to gather and share their photographs and experiences as they pursue Natures most diverse and beautiful treasurers, the birds.

  
 World Bird Wednesday will be open for posting at 12 noon Tuesday EST North America through midnight on Wednesday.
   You are invited to link your blog with other bird photographers in a weekly celebration of these most diverse and intriguing of Earth's residents.

                                                         

#1. Simply copy the above picture onto your W.B.W. blog entry. It contains a link for your readers to share in WBW. Or you can copy this link on to your blog page to share W.B.W. http://pineriverreview.blogspot.com/



#2. Come to The Pine River Review on Tuesday Noon EST North America through Wednesday midnight and submit your blog entry with Linky.


#3. Check back in during the course of the next day and explore these excellent photoblogs!


You don't have to be a Bird Watcher or expert photographer to join in--just enjoy sharing what you bring back from your explorations and adventures into nature.The idea of a meme is that you will visit each others blogs and perhaps leave a comment to encourage your compadres!


The thumbnails below are links to our contributors blogs. Click on them and view their beautiful posts.

                                             Come on it's your turn!

Okay the heck with linky, let's try a new service. Carry on!