Daily Bird: Wood Thrush
A Wood Thrush perches above its nest. Photo by Gilles Carter.
June 10, 2020
Wood Thrush
Hylocichla mustelina
Edited from a version published in 2016.
by Andy Rzeznikiewicz, Connecticut Audubon sanctuary manager. Videos and photo by Gilles Carter, a member of Connecticut Audubon’s Board of Directors
Now is the perfect time to hear the beautiful, flute-like call of the Wood Thrush throughout – as its name would indicate – the woods of rural Connecticut. Listen in the early morning and evening along quiet roads or paths.
Follow the call and find the bird and you” see that it has a reddish-brown head, back, wings, and tail, and a white breast and undersides with large dark spots on the breast and sides. It has a thicker bill than other thrushes.
Wood Thrushes prefer deciduous forests with a shrub understory and a lot of leaf litter to hunt insects in. They are most easily found from early May through the first week of August when they are still singing. After that, they are very secretive and not easily observed through the end of September.
Listen for their flute-like call in the early mornings and early evenings to better zero-in on their location. Quiet wooded roads, particularly dirt roads, are good spots to observe them feeding in the roadway. Veerys also behave this way, but they lack the prominent spots on the breast and aren’t as reddish-brown.
The dirt roads through Natchaug State Forest in Eastford and Needle’s Eye Road in Pomfret are good locations. The Connecticut DEEP’s Airline Trail through most of its length is another great location to spot one out in the open on the pathway. Similar types of locations throughout the state should produce observations.
If you happen to miss out on the Wood Thrush, look for Ovenbirds, Veerys, Black-and-white Warblers and American Redstarts. They are among the many forest birds that can be found in similar habitat. Also check the treetops for Scarlet Tanagers, Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, and Red-eyed Vireos.
The Wood Thrush is still a widespread and relatively common bird, but has shown a steady decline in population since the 1960s. Cowbird brood-parasitism is one of the main reasons for their decline. A study in the Midwest found that in fragmented habitat most nests contained at least one cowbird egg. Fortunately Wood Thrushes will often have two broods per season.
Editor’s note: The song of the Wood Thrush is a dark image in Robert Frost’s “Come In” (a poem that, like his “The Ovenbird,” is so spare and compact it could serve as a writing seminar). Leave it to Frost to confound the common wisdom. Here’s an excerpt; click the link.
