The Varied Thrush

It’s been about two weeks of watching and waiting for a new bird to show up in the backyard that I haven’t already written about. J. offered to tour me around the park where she lives just so that I can spot some new species. But they would be mostly ducks, geese, herons and swans that don't visit my backyard so I would have to create a new category in my links over on the right, something like "J.'s Park Birds."

This morning I did finally catch a glimpse of a new bird, the Varied Thrush.

Like the Towhee, the Varied Thrush (Ixoreus naevius) is quite shy and I rarely see it. It’s about as big as a Robin and looks for tasty things to eat in the litter under the evergreens well back from the house. I have seen it under the birdfeeder but I think it prefers to stay sheltered under the trees.

Oops, my boo-boo.

I've discovered that I mis-identified the Towhee that I wrote about on January 4 so I corrected my entries about it. It was actually a Spotted Towhee (Pipilo maculatus). I had called it a Rufous-sided Towhee. The academics who decide these things now consider that the Rufous-sided Towhee is actually two species: the Spotted Towhee and the Eastern Towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus). They're very similar looking but their home ranges are on opposite sides of the continent. Apparently hybrids exist where the ranges overlap.

I was going to write about my adventures booking airline flights with uncooperative call centre agents (aren't these people supposed to *want* to sell you something?) but I'm not in the mood right now (I might say something nasty) so maybe later...