Wood Thrush Encounters

Listening to bird calls is an endlessly enjoyable game for me. Trying to identify some of the birds I hear has been a big challenge—which the purchase of a CD containing the calls of all American birds has only marginally helped. (Maybe the choices are just too many?)

Some birds call with melodious songs, while others seem to squawk with a nerve-jangling noise. I love ‘em all! The star of our bird singers is the wood thrush—the winner of the most-beautiful song category, hands down.

It took me awhile to identify the wood thrush from its call, as it is a very shy creature. It prefers dense woods and is a mottled brown-and-cream color, that effectively fades it into the background. We are fortunate to have several of these birds in our surrounding woods. They are the first singer in the early morning and the last to sign off at night. It is helpful that he often sings alone, because his song is quiet and exquisitely beautiful. One wants to listen fully when he calls.

The wood thrush song is extremely varied and complex, consisting of three parts, or movements. Part one begins very quietly—a soft, low “po po po,” that can be heard only if he’s very close. In fact, it’s more like a warm up and not a real call. Part two is a gurgling, flute-like movement, of 3-4 notes. Part three is a very high-pitched single note, sung in a rich, tremolo manner. The note is held for a moment and then allowed to fade.

The interesting part of his song is the second movement. It’s like a Bach invention—the same 3-4 notes are played each time in a different order and tempo, creating multiple variations on a theme. But part three also varies beautifully. It’s pretty much the same note each time, but is given fascinatingly varied buzzes, trills, and overtones.

The wood thrush assembles his complete song in endless variations. Sometimes one movement will be eliminated; sometimes it gets repeated twice, alone. I’ll find myself riveted by his performance, hoping he doesn’t stop, trying to guess what variation he’ll do next. What an incredible skill!

Of the many hundreds of times I’ve encountered the wood thrush song, I’ve seen the bird only twice. Once my spouse and I were hiking through the woods when two thrushes flew down to the ground in a clearing and played with each other for a couple of minutes. We stood as statues, stunned. The other “face-to-foot” encounter was completely bizarre. Walking slowly to my hermitage at dusk one night, I stepped on a wood thrush. Yes! Stepped on one! That’s about as likely as getting hit on the head with a meteorite. I thought I had crushed it, but it slowly and weakly hobbled off into the underbrush. I doubt that he had the wind to sing that evening.