My Birding World

It was a relatively cool, fall morning as Gabe and I drove into Redwood Regional Park. On this Friday morning, the weekend crowds were absent with only a few people around quietly enjoying the park. We were immediately met with chirps and songs upon stepping out of the car. Brushes were rattling under the scraping action of Fox Sparrows and California Towhees, and raptors flew high into the blue sky.

We did an abbreviated version of our usual walk in order to head home, close up the windows, and run air purifiers before the Kincade Fire smoke reached the East Bay. We were on the lookout for Red-breasted Sapsuckers, carefully examining each tree for the row of holes that signals a sapsucker eating station.

Last year, we spotted a young Yellow-bellied Sapsucker in a Pepper Tree in the meadow area just next to the parking lot, so we started there. Instead of a sapsucker, we discovered a small flock of Hermit Thrushes racing back and forth between two trees. They were moving around so quickly that it was hard to get an accurate count, but there were at least eight in one spot. I tried taking some photographs, but the thrushes remained high in the tree and deep in the branches making a clear shot impossible.

Then there was a single Hermit Thrush that posed on a branch for quite awhile, staying quite still, watching the other thrushes dance between the trees. Click click click went my camera. Realizing that time was inching by, we proceeded on our sapsucker search, which yielded no sapsuckers.

At home, I looked through my thrush photos. None of them came out to my satisfaction except for that one individual that posed for me. But wait, its bill looks weird. It’s thicker than the other thrushes. Its chest markings are different too, and that eye ring is not right… I flipped through my field guide and my heart started pounding with excitement. Is it a Gray-cheeked or Bicknell’s Thrush – a mighty rarity for this area (and ones I’ve never even heard of until that moment)? Past experience with misidentifying a rarity for a native resident suggested that I calm my excitement, so I posted a picture of the bird on Facebook and crossed my fingers.

Turns out that my Hermit Thrush was not a hermit after all. Most likely candidate is that it’s a Gray-cheeked Thrush, a bird that breeds in Alaska/Northern Canada, migrates through the eastern US, and winters in South America. What a find, and a reminder to pay very close attention to flocks of seemingly similar birds.