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Thrasher season; bird omens on a house



Hi Carolinabirders,

My wife has decided that she's sick of renting and wants to buy a house,
so we've been doing some shopping in that department. Stopped at one this
morning, and saw a pair of House Sparrows going in and out of an attic
vent; seemed like a bad omen. But a little later, I heard a few Cedar
Waxwings calling overhead, and looked up to see them fleeing before a
Cooper's Hawk, which seems more like a good omen. Which one is the
stronger, I'm not quite sure... Then a pair of Rufous-sided (Eastern)
Towhees flopped noisily onto the ground in front of us in the backyard and
copulated as we watched; also seemed like a positive sign, though less so
than the Coop.

On Fri, 29 Mar 2002, Anne Lurie wrote:
>
> I don't know how long the Thrasher has been here, as I did not realize
> they were not year-round residents, but I've been seeing "Thrasher
> flashes" --  too fast for me to see the actual bird, but size & color
> unlikely for anything else  --  for a month or so.
>
> Anne Lurie
> Raleigh, NC

Brown Thrashers actually *are* year-round residents in the Triangle; see
the Triangle Bird Checklist on Will Cook's website at
http://www.duke.edu/~cwcook/
They do, however, increase in abundance around now, going from "uncommon"
to "fairly common" the second week in March, then back to "uncommon" in
November. Hard to say whether the birds that breed here are the same as
those that winter, or whether the local breeders migrate south and are
replaced by migrants from further north. Patterns of replacement like that
are turning out to be fairly common among "year-round resident" birds in
temperate parts of the US, like our local Solitary (Blue-headed) Vireos
for example. Might explain why certain bird species like Brown Thrashers
are around all year, but stop visiting our feeders in the winter. At
least, stop visiting mine...

Good birding,

Josh


Joshua S. Rose
Duke University
Department of Biology (Zoology, R.I.P.)

jsr6@duke.edu
http://www.duke.edu/~jsr6/