Song thrush

“ He does but just interrupt his search for food to sing; he stays a moment, calls, and immediately resumes his prying into every crevice of the branches and stoles. The thrush often sits on a bough and sings for a length of time, apart from his food, and without thinking of it, absorbed in his song, and full of the sweetness of the day. ”

“ The blackbird’s note is quite different from the thrush; the thrush’s song is all pure joy, and glad expectation. He sings of morning, and all his notes are in a major key. He chants of wholesome work, of brave endeavour, and of spring gladness. His rapture is like that of the early poets. No note of sorrow dulls his glorious morning. Joy, health, happiness, these are the keynotes of his rhapsody—and we are grateful to him as we are grateful for the sunshine, for the laughter of children, and for the scent of flowers. It is hard to say which song we love best. ”

“ When one is in a thoughtful mood, the songs of the Wood-Thrush and the Veery surpass all others on their delightful influence; and when I am strolling in the solitary pastures, it seems to me that nothing can exceed the simple melody of the Wood-Sparrow. But without claiming for the Red Thrush any remarkable power of exciting poetic inspiration, his song in the open field has a charm for all ears, and can be appreciated by the dullest of minds. Without singing badly, he pleases the millions. ”

“ The hermit thrush you will rarely see. But late some afternoon, when the sun is lifting along the trunks of the hardwood forest, if you are very lucky and very quiet, you will hear him far in the depth of the blackest swamps. Musically expressed, his song is very much like that of the wood thrush--three cadenced liquid notes, a quivering pause, then three more notes of another phrase, and so on. But the fineness of its quality makes of it an entirely different performance. If you symbolize the hermit thrush by the flute, you must call the wood thrush a chime of little tinkling bells. ”

“ Aside from the enchanting quality of his calls, and the thrilling magnetism of his song, the tawny thrush is an exceedingly interesting bird. In his reserved way he is socially inclined, showing no dislike to an acquaintance with his human neighbors, and even evincing a curiosity and willingness to be friendly, most winning to see.
Speak to one who, as you passed, has flown up from the ground and alighted on the lowest limb of a tree, looking at you with clear, calm eyes. He will not fly; he will even answer you. ”

“ MISSEL THRUSH AT NEST.
This species sometimes imitates the notes of other birds, but not nearly to the same extent as its commoner relative, the Song Thrush, and renders them [Pg 113] in such an undernote that they are difficult to hear on account of the singer not allowing the listener to approach very closely.
The call note is a harsh, rattling kind of cry, which, lengthened a little, and uttered with greater vehemence, becomes the alarm.
Although shy during the greater part of the year, this bird grows much bolder during the breeding season. ”

“ So loud, so loud the thrushes kept their calling,
Plover or blackbird never heeding me;
So loud the millstream too kept fretting, falling,
O’er bar and bank in brawling, boisterous glee.
So loud, so loud; yet blackbird, thrush nor plover,
Nor noisy millstream, in its fret and fall,
Could drown the voice, the low voice of my lover,
My lover calling through the thrushes’ call.
“Come down, come down!” he called, and straight the thrushes
From mate to mate sang all at once, “Come down!” ”

“ It is a real thrush in size, in shape, in habits, and in song—and is indeed a solitary bird, for it never associates with any other, and only with its own mate in breeding time—and even then it is often seen quite alone upon the house-top, where it warbles in sweet and plaintive strains, and continues its song as it moves in easy flight from roof to roof. ”

“ A very instructive case is the behaviour of the song-thrush when it takes a wood-snail in its beak and hammers it against a stone, its so-called anvil. To a young thrush, which she had brought up by hand, Miss Frances Pitt offered some wood-snails, but it took no interest in them until one put out its head and began to move about. The bird then pecked at the snail's horns, but was evidently puzzled when the creature retreated within the shelter of the shell. ”

“ Our nightingale, thrush, and lark are all birds of sober plumage; but in the East there are no vocal artists; no lark poising itself in mid-air warbling forth in the early morn, and gladdening the heart of man with its song; no thrush singing to its lady-love from the topmost branch of a may-tree; no 64 nightingale to lend its charm to a summer twilight—nothing but gaudy plumage and burnished colours that dart hither and thither “brief as the lightning in the collied night.” ”

“ From many a deep-lying dell in the adjacent hills she can hear the song of the thrush, as if endeavouring to outdo, and cause one to forget, the matchless strain of its nocturnal rival, the nightingale; or making music for its own mate, now on the nest, and occupied with the cares of incubation. ”

“ Now it happens that one of the true thrushes of South America, a bird resembling our song-thrush, has an almost identical bell-like chirp, and so far as that small drop of sound is concerned the old image may be refreshed by new sense-impressions. Or I might even say that the original image has been covered by the later one, as in the case of the laughter-like cries of the Dominican and the black-backed gulls. But with regard to the thrushes, excepting that small drop of sound, the language of the two species is utterly different. ”

“ At the corner of Wood-Street, when day-light appears,
There's a Thrush that sings loud, it has sung for three years:
Poor Susan has pass'd by the spot and has heard
In the silence of morning the song of the bird. ”

“ Their blithesome notes would mock the ear,
The thrush’s song is not less sweet,
Although we weep to hear.
And though we love the sunshine well
We would not have it always day,
Man soon would weary were his life
One ceaseless roundelay. ”

“ This Thrush, which I met with on the Rio Negro of Patagonia, so closely approximates to T. rufiventris in colour, language, and habits, that the casual observer finds it difficult to distinguish one from the other. Its nest and eggs are also precisely like those of its northern representative. The song is, however, much poorer, and reminds one of the first attempts of a young bird. That a member of so melodious a family should have so inferior a song I attribute to the fact that Thrushes (unlike the songsters of other genera) sing only in the warm season and when the air is calm. ”

“ First, as to the general conditions of voicefulness, I think it may be safely said that you will not hear the Song-Thrush in strong wind, nor snow, cold fog, or other uncomfortable wintry weather. What really spurs them to sing is still, open weather, when food is easy to get at: sunshine is not a necessity, and the temperature is of no great account until it becomes really low, and continues so for some days. For example, on March 25th, when I was writing these notes, a bitterly cold day of snowstorms, a Thrush was singing finely at 6.45 p.m., with the thermometer at 26°. ”

“ He listens to the Wood Thrush, while he thinks of the course which he ought to pursue, and as the bird approaches to peep at him, and learn somewhat of his intentions, he raises his mind towards the Supreme Disposer of events. Seldom, indeed, have I heard the song of this Thrush, without feeling all that tranquillity of mind, to which the secluded situation in which it delights is so favourable. The thickest and darkest woods always appear to please it best. ”

“ The thrush is the great exception. The first three notes of his song descend in perfect seconds, with a purity of tone unsurpassable—a quality strikingly absent amongst most of the feathered songsters. ”

“ Entering the woods in early summer this bird is sure to shake out its ordinary, rattling chorus—"Teacher, Teacher, Teacher," the notes delivered with tremendous force and distinctness and the emphasis increasing—a vibrant, crescendo chant as unlike the brilliant ecstasy song as can be imagined.
The ovenbird is also called the golden-crowned thrush, for no conceivable reason unless it is that the bird is not a thrush, but classed with the warblers. Or is it that its white breast, thickly spotted with dusky, resembles the thrush's? ”

“ The song of the Wood Thrush, although composed of but few notes, is so powerful, distinct, clear, and mellow, that it is impossible for any person to hear it without being struck by the effect which it produces on the mind. ”

“ Love alone inspires his finest strains; but even in July, when bird music is quite inferior to that of May and June, he is still in good voice. A song so exquisite proves that the thrush comes near to being a bird angel, very high in the scale of development, and far, far beyond such low creatures as ducks and chickens.
Pit-pit-pit you may hear sharply, excitedly jerked out of some bird's throat, and you wonder if a note so disagreeable can really come from the wonderful songster on the branch above your head. ”

“ Many naturalists, who have paid particular attention to the song of the thrush, have insisted upon its taking equal rank as a songster with the more favoured nightingale. Certain it is, that the notes of this bird, although not so varied, nor so liquid, so to say, as those of Philomel, are yet of a clear, rich tone, and have something indescribably sweet about them. “Listen,” says Macgillivray, “to the clear, loud notes of that speckled warbler, that in the softened sunshine pours forth his wild melodies on the gladdened ear. ”

“ The melody of the woodthrush is not so wild, so ethereal and so far away as the hermit's, but when he rings his vesper bell in his divine contralto voice, no other sound in Nature can excel it. We have heard many nightingales and skylarks singing, but their songs do not attain that depth of soul-thrilling harmony found alone in the song of the thrush. So, too, here in the lovely Catskill region, you will see a kind of beauty that nowhere else can be obtained. ”

“ I found one with a song so absurdly peculiar that I spent some time in making sure of its author. It is to be hoped that this tendency to individual variation will persist and increase in the case of this species till something more melodious than its present sibilant monotony is evolved; till beauty and art are mated, as they ought to be. Who would not love to hear the music of all our birds a few millions of years hence? What a singer the hermit thrush will be, for example, when his tune is equal to his voice! Indigo-birds, white-eyed vireos and prairie warblers abounded. ”

“ AMONG the birds that inhabit the dense forests of western Washington in the summer season, none is probably so abundant as the russet-backed thrush ( Turdiis nstulatus) ; and certainly none? save the rusty song sparrow, and possi- bly the dwarf hermit thrush, is so fine a songster. Though the artful music of the varied thrush, the tinkling falsetto of the tiny winter wren, the briefer, quaint notes of warblers, or the fresh, accentuated songs of vireos, may often, too, be heard by the listener, the song of the russet-backed thrush stands out distinct from all these. ”

“ Where it goes to make a home for its greenish-blue speckled eggs in some low bush at the northern end of its range, it bursts into song, but except in the nesting grounds its voice is never heard. Mr. Bradford Torrey, who heard it singing in the White Mountains, describes the song as like the thrush's in quality, but differently accented: "Wee-o-wee-o-tit-ti-wee-o!"
In New England and New York this thrush is most often seen during its autumn migrations. As it starts up and perches upon a low branch before you, it appears to have longer legs and a broader, squarer tail than its congeners. ”

“ Beyond the question of even the hypercritical, the hermit thrush has a more exquisitely beautiful voice than any other American bird, and only the nightingale's of Europe can be compared with it. It is the one theme that exhausts all the ornithologists' musical adjectives in a vain attempt to convey in words any idea of it to one who has never heard it, for the quality of the song is as elusive as the bird itself. ”

“ Bates, the naturalist of the Amazon, speaks of a little thrush he used to hear in his rambles that showed the American quality to which I have referred. "It is a much smaller and plainer-colored bird," he says, "than our [the English] thrush, and its song is not so loud, varied, or so long sustained; here the tone is of a sweet and plaintive quality, which harmonizes well with the wild and silent woodlands, where alone it is heard in the mornings and evenings of sultry, tropical days." ”

“ And if your experience be the same as ours, you will also have the advantage of a singing competition between a homely thrush and some other bird, in which the thrush, with his louder, more continuous, and more varied song, bore away the palm. ”

“ In this peculiar power no bird-voice in our part of the world can compare with theirs. The brown thrush ranks high as a musician, the mockingbird leads the world, in the opinion of its lovers, and the winter wren thrills one to the heart. Yet no bird song so moves the spirit, no other—it seems to me—so intoxicates its hearer with rapture, as [Pg 260] the solemn chant of "the hermit withdrawn to himself."
"Whenever a man hears it," says our devoted lover of Nature, Thoreau, "he is young, and Nature is in her spring ”