The Wood Thrush....jewel of the woods.

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As my son, Sam, and I were walking a trail in the woods yesterday, a  small brown bird suddenly burst seemingly right out of the leaves almost at our feet and flew up to a branch on a nearby tree. Sam looked at the spot she'd taken off from and there, nestled tightly in the leaves, beautifully framed by a tiny spruce, and some baby beech seedlings was a nest.  In the nest were two very blue-green eggs.  We quietly walked on by, but only after I took a couple of frames of the nest.

When I looked to identify the bird, it became clear that we'd just had a close encounter of the Wood Thrush kind.  Today, when I approached the same spot, I peeked and saw that there are now three eggs.  They are a darker and more vibrant blue-green than Robin's eggs, a bird that most don't realize is also one of the Thrushes.  Just click on the title above and it is a link (To Cornell's Ornithology Lab...a superb resource for anyone interested in birds, btw)  where you can click on a button and hear the melodious call of the Wood Thrush and I am guessing you will say: "Oh, THAT'S what that bird is."  Because--if you have spent any time in the hardwood forests of North America--it will sound very familiar.

Here is yet another member of the forest fauna that relies on superb camouflage to survive.  Today, when I approached her nest, this thrush held tight until I was just a few feet away and she was utterly invisible.  My ''bird dogs" have gone right on by about once a day for as long as her nest has been there, a testament to how perfectly she is situated.