Wednesday, March 30, 2011

The Long Hermit Thrush Winter

We have been fortunate to host Hermit Thrushes (or at least one bird of this species) for three consecutive seasons, and the 2010-11 round is so far the longest yet. According to my BirdCam logbook, I recorded: (1) 2008-09, photos on 20 days between December 9 and March 18 (2) 2009-10, photos on 5 days between January 9 and March 23 (3) 2010-11, to date, photos on 26 days between November 20 and March 28. This year's visit was by far the longest, started earlier, yielded the most photo opportunities, and could end in April, assuming the bird sticks around just a few days more. What a blessing! This hard-to-find bird joined our winter regulars and is familiar as any of them, and just perhaps has keyed on our feeders enough to zero in on us as long as it lives. I hope this long and appreciated season is repeated next winter!

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