Thrasher Concert

The air was cool but not crisp as a small group of loon researchers gathered in the morning light outside the villas at Devil’s Fork State Park on Lake Jocassee in South Carolina. “There’s a loon!” someone exclaimed, as they pointed through the screen of trees toward a familiar silhouette bobbing on the rippled surface. Since we had all gathered as part of Loon Camp—the week-long loon research experience for adult volunteers—this was an appropriate first bird of the morning.

First loon!

But spotting loons wasn’t our main goal, at least not yet. Each morning of Loon Camp beings with a land-based birding walk for anyone willing to wake up early. The cloudless blue sky of our first day made it truly feel like spring—and sound like spring, too! An eastern phoebe repeated their rough, two-note fee-bee! call from among the villas. As we ventured onto the pine-lined park road, the evergreen canopy came alive with the tiny, squeaky toy noises of brown-headed nuthatches. A northern cardinal scolded harshly from the brush, then posed briefly in a sunny tree to show off his scarlet crest. A pair of eastern bluebirds posed on their nest box.

Brown-headed nuthatch

Northern Cardinal

Eastern Bluebird

Those of us who had traveled from the still-wintery lands of Northern Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Ohio, reveled in the cacophony. And then it got louder. From the top of a leafless oak tree commenced a steady stream of whistles and warbles that sounded as if an entire flock of flickers, vireos, titmice, cardinals, and wood thrushes were all taking turns. Just one robin-sized bird perched there, though. Listen

Brown Thrasher

There are three “mimics” common across North America. These birds all increase their repertoire of songs and show off their skills to the ladies by copying from other birds. Northern mockingbirds repeat each stolen phrase several times. Brown thrashers tend to repeat each phrase twice. Gray catbirds say each phrase just once, and pepper their concert with a distinctive, cat-like mew.

With some imagination, I could hear the mnemonic plant a seed, plant a seed, bury it, bury it, cover it up, cover it up, let it grow, let it grow, pull it up, pull it up, eat it, eat it, in this bird’s song, and quickly identified him as a brown thrasher. Depending on who you believe, brown thrashers have a repertoire of over 1,000, over 2,000, or over 3,000 song types that they can string together in one run-on overture.

Brown thrashers are special not only in the variety of phrases they can sing, but the types of sounds they can make. Birds have a two-sided voice box called a syrinx, and by controlling each side independently, thrashers can harmonize with themselves!

We smiled at his enthusiasm, and then turned around so we wouldn’t be late for our first day of counting loons on Lake Jocassee—an experience I wrote about last week.

Later in the week, I set out by myself on an afternoon nature walk. As usual, the birds had stopped singing. The relative quiet made a rustling in the dry leaves even more noticeable. Pausing, I watched for movement, then zoomed in. Behind a screen of twigs, I glimpsed the striking black back, orange sides, and white breast of an eastern towhee. Barely a foot away, I spotted the rusty back and striped chest of the brown thrasher. Although these two birds are not closely related, they share a habit of living in brushy places, and scratching loudly through leaf litter to find insects, worms, lizards, frogs, fruits, and seeds. We’ve captured both of them during our Wisconsin Master Naturalist bird banding experiences in the Moquah Barrens—which is another similarly brushy habitat.

Eastern Towhee

Brown Thrasher

Amused, I watched as the brown thrasher used their long, curved beak to toss aside sticks and leaves with gusto. Their yellow eye with its large black pupil appeared to be open extra wide as if anxious not to miss any potential snack they had just uncovered. Once, they picked up an acorn and seemed to assess its value before tossing it aside.

Every single morning of Loon Camp we were treated to a concert from at least one, and often two, brown thrashers singing their hearts out, competing for females and territories in their own version of American Idol. As soon as the pairs start nesting, the guys will quiet down and focus their energy on more important tasks, like assisting with incubating their 2-6 eggs. These birds likely spend all year in the favorable climate of South Carolina, but across the Southeast are other brown thrashers who will soon be migrating north, just a little bit behind the loons. Their concert tour continues! Plan to attend one of their performances at dawn in your local shrubbery.

Emily’s third book, Natural Connections3: A Web Endlessly Woven, is available to purchase at www.cablemuseum.org/books and at your local independent bookstore, too.

For more than 50 years, the Cable Natural History Museum has served to connect you to the Northwoods. Our Summer Calendar opens for registration on April 1st at 9:00 a.m.! The Museum is closed until early May to allow for construction of our new exhibit, The Wetland Way. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and cablemuseum.org to see what we are up to.