Back in Illinois: Varied Thrush!
Palos Park, IL
Tuesday 16 January 2018
27 °F
Today, I went birding after school in hopes of finding a vagrant Varied Thrush from the Pacific Northwest which has recently been appearing under a residential bird feeder in Palos Park, IL.
The birds were extremely quiet - not a peep could be heard, only the wind rushing through the leafless tree branches. Amazingly, I caught a glimpse of ONE BIRD in the trees hundreds of yards down the road and zoomed in on it. Low and behold, it was my VARIED THRUSH! And within ten seconds, it disappeared from sight, thankfully not too early for me to snag this diagnostic photo of its dark breast band, though:
Then, I figured out why the birds might have been so scarce - this gigantic COOPER’S HAWK was diligently patrolling the area:
Bird-of-the-day to the Varied Thrush, which I have only heard once before in Washington State but never before seen. Runner-up to the COOPER’S HAWK.
Good birding,
Henry
World Life List: 929 Species (no recent life birds)
Posted by skwclar 17:16 Archived in USA Tagged varied_thrush
