Brown Thrasher off the missing list

Although I usually write about what turns up around, sometimes it is necessary to recognize what didn't show up. On Monday, it was the Seaside Sparrow, missing from some of its former haunts in the marshes off Dune Road. For our Weesuck Creek property on the opposite side of Shinnecock Bay, the missing bird has been the Green Heron. Butorides virescens has been a presence for many years, nesting on the property or somewhere in the vicinity. Its distinctive calls were part of the soundscape here and young birds-of-the-year could often be found on the muddy edges of the pond. But this year, apart from one brief visit earlier in the spring, this species has been notable for its absence.

One bird that did turn up this morning was the Brown Thrasher. I heard him singing briefly yesterday but couldn't locate him. This morning this dapper third mimid (along with the Northern Mockingbird and Gray Catbird) was perched high in a dead tree at the head of the marsh and singing away at his double-tune anthem. As I've mentioned before, Toxostoma rufum has the reputation of being the world's best songbird, not because the song is so transcendentally beautiful (it's not; its rather throaty tone is pleasant but not gorgeous) but because each phrase in his thrasher repertory is freshly invented (not imitated like the Mocker), then immediately repeated and then never (or hardly ever) heard again; in other words, it keeps on inventing new phrases as it goes along.

The most vocal birds these days are the two big flycatchers: Great Crested and Eastern Phoebe. The latter, a young bird accompanied by a buzzy fee-beeing adult has been around the house all day.

Forster's Terns are still common on the creek, many of them in non-breeding plumage (young birds? adults that have already shed their spring plumage?). As I watch the terns flying on the creek, it becomes easier to recognize the difference between the Forster's and Common Terns in flight, mostly because Forster's looks whiter overall and seems to have a slightly rounder head shape.

And now a mystery: Several loud bell-like calls in pairs ringing around the house, resembling no bird vocalization that I could identify. Perhaps it was an unfamiliar Blue Jay call but there was nothing jay-like about it. Jays and crows (both in the corvid family) are song-less song birds but they have a big variety of vocalizations for various purposes.

Eric Salzman