Bird Bio

Bird Bio: Brown Thrasher

Holiday Store Hours

The Wood Thrush Shop will be closed Monday and Tuesday, July 3rd and 4th. We hope you have a fun Independence Day weekend. See you Wednesday the 5th.

Brown Thrashers

Many of you are fortunate to see Brown Thrashers, primarily in the spring and summer months. Brown Thrashers (BT) are a year round species in TN, however, many migrate short distances which explains why you may not see them in winter. These birds are found in areas with hedges and dense undergrowth where they can forage vigorously on the ground in complete cover. They often move around below bird feeding stations picking up bits of seed and suet while looking for insects.

BT’s are a large songbird with long features. They have a long, curved bill, long legs, and a long tail. They are reddish brown above with narrow black and white wing bars, with prominent dark streaky spots on the chest and belly. To top it off this handsome bird has yellow eyes.

Quite often customers will see a Thrasher and misidentify as a Wood Thrush. While there are some similarities they really are very different in appearance and behavior, too. Always look at a bird with binoculars before coming to a conclusion. A Wood Thrush spends most of its life in the tree tops while Brown Thrashers spend most of their lives on or near the ground. They’ve even been known to nest directly on the ground. BT’s are mostly insect eaters but have been known to consume seeds, nuts, fruit, and even small snakes and tree frogs if the opportunity presents. Occasionally they are seen at suet feeders.

Another very notable thing about Brown Thrashers is they are impressive vocalizers. Their song is a complex string of many musical phrases (many copied from other birds’ songs, with each phrase typically sung twice before moving on). They also make a distinctive, harsh tsuck note.

I hope you are fortunate enough to see these beautiful and interesting songsters in your yard.

Bird Bio: Summer Tanager

You’re walking in the park when you see a stunning flash of red in the tree canopy above you. You don’t get a good look, so you write it off as another cardinal. But something about it just didn’t seem right to you. Suddenly, you see the flash of red again up ahead, but this time the bird lights on a branch, sidles down, and grabs a large insect before it viciously begins to thrash it into submission. You look through your binoculars and this time get a good enough look to be certain it’s no cardinal, but what could it be?

Male Summer Tanager. Photos by Eli Haislip.

The Summer tanager is an eye-catching bird to say the least. These neotropical migrants call our deciduous and pine-oak forests home for the spring and summer months. During fall migration, they leave their summer breeding grounds behind and will travel as far south as the rain forests of Bolivia. When they aren’t traveling between hemispheres, they can usually be found in the tops of trees where they are more easily heard than seen. Listen for their robin like song, or their unique “pi-tuh-took” call. Once you are able to recognize these by ear, you will be amazed by just how common these beautiful birds are. To hear this birds call check out the Summer Tanager profile on allaboutbirds.org

Juvenile male

Female

During early spring, the males sing and aggressively chase one another in order to establish territories. Males will take only one mate per season. After the birds pair off, females will weave crude bowls out of dried grasses and other vegetation. Females incubate eggs while the males will busy themselves with important activities such as preening, foraging and getting a little rest. After an incubation period of 11-12 days, both parents will help to raise the young. After a period of as short as 8-12 days, it is time for the fledglings to leave the nest, despite being barely able to fly. During this period, they usually will hide themselves in dense vegetation, only calling on occasion to their parents who will continue to feed them for around 3 weeks.

While visits to feeders are rare, they are not entirely unheard of. They are known to visit suet feeders, and they might not rule out a plump mealworm if the opportunity presented itself. However, they are more likely to spend their time in the treetops where they specialize in eating wasps, bees, as well as other insects, and fruit or berries. Great places to see these birds include Edwin Warner and Bowie Nature Park in Fairview.

Swallows: The Early Spring Migrants

The earliest of the spring migrants, birds returning from Central and South America, include a few birds of the swallow family. Purple Martins, Tree, Barn, Cliff, and Rough-winged swallows are some of the earliest to return to middle TN. A recent outing on the Harpeth River revealed several Cliff swallows feeding over the water and flying up and straight into the amazing gourd-like mud nest they build on bridges.

Cliff Swallows have broad, pointed wings, a metallic dark blue back, pale cinnamon colored rumps, and rusty brown faces with a white patch on the forehead. 

Like Barn swallows and Purple Martins these birds are colony nesters and it is normal to see hundreds of these structures clustered together.  Over 3,000 nests have been seen in one place.  When young Cliff Swallows leave their nests they congregate in large groups called creches.  A pair of swallows can find its own young in the creche primarily by voice. 

Obviously, they are very social, not only in their nesting habits but feeding as well.  You may see hundreds of these birds feeding together when a particularly good swarm of insects presents itself.  In fact, if a Cliff swallow finds a good source of flying insects it has a specific call to alert the others. 

To find this bird look at any bridges crossing the Harpeth River. There’s a good chance you will see these busy little birds feeding and coming and going from their amazing nest structures.

Wood Thrush Notes

Tree Swallows and Bluebirds

Over the past ten years more and more people are reporting Tree Swallows using a nest box intended for Bluebirds. Tree Swallows are considered “competition” for the Bluebirds but typically that would be because there is only one box available. Such is the case when only one box present. In mid-TN there may be as many as 7 different songbirds interested in a Bluebird box; Chickadee, White-breasted Nuthatch, Tufted Titmouse, Carolina, and House Wren, Prothonotary Warbler, and the Tree Swallow. This is why we recommend offering a number of nest-box choices. To not only alleviate competition, but to give several species of birds an opportunity that these days are getting harder to come by because of loss, or disruption, to habitat.

The Tree Swallow is smaller than a Bluebird measuring about 5-6 inches in length. Male and female are a steely blue-green to nearly black above and pure white below. Females tend to be a little duller in color overall. In the sunlight the blue-green plumage is very perceptible. Their forked tail is not as pronounced as a Barn Swallow’s.

Like other swallows they are expert flyers acrobatically catching insects on the wing. They appear to enjoy flying.

Their habitat preferences are pretty diverse ranging from wetlands and marshy areas to meadows and woodlands near water. This bird is only here between late February and approximately mid-March as it migrates back to its winter grounds in Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica.

I recall reading accounts of Tree Swallows and Bluebirds using nest-boxes placed back to back on the same pole. I’ve never had a chance to test this but recently heard from a naturalist friend of mine experiencing this very thing. So, these two species are compatible enough to tolerate nesting in close proximity. If you have experienced Tree Swallows seemingly taking over one of your Bluebird boxes perhaps this is a chance for you to test this theory.


Saturday Seed Availability Update

It’s been another trying week coordinating deliveries through freight. As a result of some errors we are out of stock of all sizes of Woodland Blend and Premium Blend until Monday the 28th. We are sorry for the inconvenience and are continually trying to keep your preferred products arriving in a timely way. Thanks for your business and your patience.

Watch for Red-breasted Nuthatch

A few of our winter visitors/residents are now being seen around Nashville and middle-TN. In recent weeks there have been several reported sightings of Red-breasted nuthatches. This is a bird that usually calls the higher elevations of Eastern Mountains home. This nuthatch is found irregularly in TN from late September to early May. Some years they appear in abundance, others few are present. For this it is recognized as an “irruptive” migrant. Red-breasted nuthatches are smaller than the White-breasted nuthatch and even smaller than the Carolina Chickadee. Measuring in at 4 ½ inches in length it’s understandable one could miss them coming and going from a feeder. They have a black cap and prominent eye line that stands out next to the white brow. And with rust underparts and gray back this is one handsome little bird. You may be familiar with the call of the White-breasted nuthatch being a repeating nasal “yank” “yank” “yank”. The Red-breasted nuthatch call is similar but higher in pitch and has been compared to a toy tin horn.

To Hear the Red-breasted nuthatch call visit Cornell Lab at allaboutbirds.org

An important connection to the presence of Red-breasted nuthatches is pine and/or cedar trees. Pine and cedar offer important food sources and provide dense cover. A poor cone crop in their usual range may explain why they leave those areas for better food availability elsewhere. So, if you live in an area with some stands of pine and cedar keep an eye on your sunflower, woodland blend, and suet feeder. Like chickadees and titmice they will grab a seed, or chunk of suet, and go, not lingering around the feeder.

Hopefully, the appearance of Red-breasted nuthatches is an indication of interesting things to come this winter. It would be nice to see good numbers of Pine Siskins and Purple Finch as well. Have a good weekend. Go look for some birds!