Feeding the Song Thrush

The MOTH cleared a small section of garden yesterday with a view to a replant. I have been watching the Song Thrushes in the past weeks as they forage for food on the grass and garden. Usually it is just one bird and its beak is often full of worms as it seeks food for its young.
They are sharp-eyed and very nervous of any movement. In fact they almost have a sixth sense that they are being watched as so often their head tilts and I am spotted from the kitchen window.
This freshly tilled, damp soil was a real treat for the birds and in particular this beauty.

Song thrush

I edged ever so slightly to the right to get a clearer view but my apparently subtle shift was enough to send the Thrush away to safety. Content with one image I left the birds to feed without me adding stress to their life.
They are very beautiful birds.

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The Darkling Thrush by Thomas Hardy

Further to my post yesterday about our resident Thrush, came a comment from Jo in Scotland, that my post, our winter and recent earthquakes had put her in mind of this poem…..I agree with Jo so here it is for you all to enjoy.

As a side note Jo keeps two blogs on the boil one here “Jo’s Journal” and the other here “The Hazel Tree”, both are stunning and so well written and interesting.

And the Thrush has been in full voice again here from first light. He is “off for lunch” at the moment, thanks to the noise of a local lawn mowing chap.

The Darkling Thrush
By Thomas Hardy

I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land’s sharp features seemed to be
The Century’s corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.

The sweet song of the Thrush

In my post yesterday I mentioned that as a delightful counterpoint to listening for rumbling earth tremors, and creaking and groaning house timbers or ominous rattling, I had discovered the bird song in the garden to be that of a Thrush or Song Thrush as they can be known.

I have been on to this simply outstanding website and gathered up some bits of information about our very tuneful friend. He has the capacity to sing without pause for several hours I am discovering this morning.
The Thrush is an introduced bird to New Zealand and is found through-out the country. It is a pretty bird with speckles on a proud cream breast. They love to sing from a high branch or on a tree top, although they are often seen on the ground foraging for food.
Here is “my” one- high up on the flowering cherry tree

And then, when not enjoying my proximity, he flew to a neighbour’s Silver Birch tree….can you spot him as a distant blur in the centre of the photo?

These seem to be his current favourite vantage points from which to tell all that this is his territory. Information indicates that at this time of the year as breeding is about to get under way (August through to February) the male thrush sings to inform of his territorial ownership.

The song is distinctive and attractive with many notes repeated several times before another phrase is sung and repeated. NZ Birds online website here has several recordings worth listening to. I was amazed to find that the first two were from 1845 and the early 1900’s in Christchurch and are part of the Natural History Unit Sound Archive.www.archivebirdsnz.com

In spring and summer I am often alerted to a Thrush on the ground by the sound of loud cracking on the concrete path. Thrushes love snails (and slugs) and will work very hard to crack open the shell so they can eat the contents….

So now I need to look for the chorister’s mate and check the trees in our Tall Tree area of the garden to see if I can spot a nest being built in days to come. I think I found a Thrushes’ nest down in that spot last autumn.

Every so often we find a blue-green egg with speckles on it, cracked and empty after a Thrush fledgling has hatched and the egg remains have been tossed out on to the ground.

Do go and visit the website to enjoy the clear and informative photos, sound recordings and data there.

And I will continue to listen to the performance that has been going on for 5 hours now bar a short intermission when the Thrush hopped past my glass sliding door and I swear he winked at me

Singing in the garden

We continue to experience very mild temperatures here. Last evening I became aware of a solitary bird singing and it was not a Tui. Again this morning, I could hear the same song.

I discovered that it was a Song Thrush. I checked my book about Birds in NZ and learnt that Thrushes can breed from June to January and raise more than one clutch of eggs.

I wonder whether the birds are feeling confused with our very mild late autumn and with plenty of rain and warmth there is plenty of food around for the birds, so maybe the Thrush was calling for a mate a little earlier than usual.

The Thrush was a very welcome visitor.