Hermit thrush

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The hermit thrush (Catharus guttatus) is a medium-sized North American thrush.

Taxonomy

It is not very closely related to the other North American migrant species of Catharus, but rather to the Mexican russet nightingale-thrush.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The specific name guttatus is Latin for "spotted",<ref name="job">Template:Cite book</ref> though historically this species has been given 17 additional species or subspecies names by various authors, now all treated as synonyms.<ref>Halley, M.R. (2019) The misidentification of Turdus ustulatus Nuttall, and the names of the nightingale-thrushes (Turdidae: Catharus). Bulletin of the British Ornithologists’ Club 139(3): 238-259. DOI:10.25226/bboc.v139i3.2019.a6</ref>

Description

This species measures Template:Convert in length, spans Template:Convert across the wings and weighs Template:Convert. Among standard measurements, the wing chord is Template:Convert, the bill is Template:Convert and the tarsus is Template:Convert. It is more compact and stockier than other North American Catharus thrushes, with relatively longer wings.<ref>Thrushes by Peter Clement. Princeton University Press (2001). Template:ISBN</ref> The hermit thrush has the white-dark-white underwing pattern characteristic of Catharus thrushes. Adults are mainly brown on the upperparts, with reddish tails. The underparts are white with dark spots on the breast and grey or brownish flanks. They have pink legs and a white eye ring. Birds in the east are more olive-brown on the upperparts; western birds are more grey-brown.Template:Citation needed

Distribution and habitat

Hermit thrushes breed in coniferous or mixed woods across Canada, southern Alaska, and the northeastern and western United States. They are very rare vagrants to western Europe and northeast Asia.<ref>Brazil, Mark (2009) Birds of East Asia Template:ISBN page 402</ref>

While most hermit thrushes migrate to wintering grounds in the southern United States and south to Central America, some remain in northern coastal US states and southern Ontario.<ref>Hermit Thrush, All about Birds</ref> Identification of spotted thrushes is simplified by the fact that hermit thrush is the only spotted thrush normally found in North America during winter.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Breeding

Hermit thrushes make a cup nest on the ground or relatively low in a tree. They usually breed in forests, but will sometimes winter in parks and wooded suburban neighborhoods.

Behavior

Hermit thrushes forage on the forest floor, as well as in trees or shrubs, mainly eating insects and berries.

Song

The hermit thrush's song<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }} (Through The Internet Archive)</ref> has been described as "the finest sound in nature"<ref name = "Brahic2014"/> and is ethereal and flute-like, consisting of a beginning note, then several descending musical phrases in a minor key, repeated at different pitches. It often sings from a high open location. Analysis of the notes of its song indicates that they are related by harmonic simple integer pitch ratios, like many kinds of human music and unlike the songs of other birds that have been similarly examined.<ref name = "Brahic2014">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name = "Doolittle2014">Template:Cite journal</ref>

In culture

The hermit thrush is the state bird of Vermont.

Walt Whitman construes the hermit thrush as a symbol of the American voice, poetic and otherwise, in his elegy for Abraham Lincoln, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd,"<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> one of the fundamental texts in the American literary canon. "A Hermit Thrush"<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> is the name of a poem by the American poet Amy Clampitt. A hermit thrush appears in the fifth section ("What the Thunder Said") of the T. S. Eliot poem The Waste Land.

Former Canadian indie-rock band Thrush Hermit took their name from a reversal of the bird's name. It is also shared by the American bands Hermit Thrushes and Hermit Thrush.

Gallery

• Hermit thrush in Prospect Park (15404).jpg

  Adult in New York City, showing reddish tail

• HermitThrush63.jpg

  Ocala National Forest, Florida 2008

• Catharus guttatus.ogv

  Hermit thrush singing

• 20231024 hermith thrush south meadows PND08226.jpg

  East Hartford, Connecticut

External links

• Hermit thrush - Catharus guttarus - USGS Patuxent Bird Identification InfoCenter
• Hermit thrush species account - Cornell Lab of Ornithology
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