Wood Thrush success!

 A Wood Thrush showed up at my Alpine ponds habitat four or five days ago. When I first saw a very brief shaded glimpse of basically its head only, I thought, "Wood Thrush," but as that would be rare for here, I tried to convince myself it was probably a robin. I didn't report it as either species. Another quick glimpse that same day, or maybe the next, same dilemma. Then I went to the oasis to water and saw some nice birds there (especially a Hooded Warbler), and forgot all about the thrush.

When I got back to town and back to monitoring the ponds habitat, I finally got enough of a look to be sure it was a Wood Thrush and reported it. But all I could manage was this bad photo into the sun two days ago..

It was driving me nuts wanting a better photo of it. Just couldn't make it happen. It didn't help that the place was quite birdy, not to mention the distraction of two Hermit Thrushes also visiting the berry-laden Chinese Pistachio tree. And the air was alive with hordes of Monarchs further challenging my not-so-good eyesight. (Mostly my eyes are slow to focus darting between sun and shade, as birding requires.)

While I was attempting to get a better photo of the thrush, serendipitously, the Blue-headed Vireo (see previous post) popped into the berry tree where I got a better photo of it, my best one for Brewster County. All fun! It took twenty years of nurturing that tree, but so worth it because it makes tons of berries for fall migrants. (The mulberry trees are for spring migrants.)

I persevered, and yesterday morning I did get this halfway decent photo. But I still wasn't satisfied. 

. 

Visiting birders yesterday afternoon spent an hour and couldn't even get a glimpse of the thrush. It seemed to stay hidden in a lush pine tree near the berry tree, making brief forays into the tree for berries.

After my all-morning vigil today, the bird spent some time foraging on the ground (for protein?), and I got my desired photo! It was very satisfying, even though it wasn't any kind of record for me. The species had been here in 2021 and I had good photos of it, besides having good photos of one in Marathon from 2020. It's just always a fun challenge to get nice photos of birds rare to this area whenever possible.

 

Another nice bird I had here recently is this Black-throated Gray Warbler.