Fidgety Fowls

I am sitting in my outdoor tub, soaking in the hot water—my attention momentarily turned outwards, to the natural world surrounding me. What attracts my observations at the moment is not the breeze wafting through the trees, or the insects calling forth, but a single bird singing from the woods up on the hill. It's a wood thrush—who I tend to regard as the top songster around here.

I hear him call out several times from a location up the slope a ways. Then he pauses, sings again, and I soon realize he's flitted to a new perch a hundred feet or so away from his initial singing post. After a few more songs offered from there, he moves again to yet another location and bursts out in song again.

I aurally follow this fidgety fowl, as he flits and sings a few more times, with no apparent (to me) pattern to his movements. Then I hear another wood thrush singing from time to time, from a more removed place deeper in the woods. Is this a rival?

So what's going on here? Why does the closer bird call half a dozen songs from each location, before flying to a new perch? I can't discern any method to his position changes. Is it random? Does he have a game plan that escapes me?

And what's the purpose of his singing this evening? Is it a mating call? Is he defining and defending his territory? Is it just an urge to sing from various perches, to see how glorious his call can be?

If he is mounting a defense of his domain, do the various singing posts he occupies define the boundaries of his realm? Is he letting the opposition—maybe that farther-off thrush—know where his frontiers lie? Maybe he's looking to expand his territory, and is testing the response of any rivals, to see how successful his feints might be. “If I cross over my boundary a bit, will the other guy take offense? Can I fake him out and claim an expanded stake?”

But maybe he's really seeking a mate. If he changes position from time to time, maybe his song will travel a little deeper into the woods from a specific perch—just enough to reach a receptive female. Maybe his song flies through the trees much more melodiously from one specific perch... more than that perch over there.

But he also may be alert to possible threats—that sharp-shinned hawk was spotted earlier today and the thrush can't afford to remain in any one location for more than a few quick calls, lest the hawk zero in on him.

How I wish I could interview this bird and pose some of these questions to him. He could enlighten me. He could clear up the mystery. That's not going to happen any time soon, so I guess I'm relegated to a solitary soaking in the tub, as I speculate on what this wood thrush is up to. So I do have other than a hedonistic purpose for spending all this time soaking in the tub: I'm conducting experiments in the natural world. This is science—not self-indulgent soaking!