Happy Memorial Day from The Wood Thrush Shop!

Memorial Day Hours

Happy Memorial Day from the Wood Thrush Shop! We will be closed Monday May 25th in observation of Memorial day, with normal hours resuming on Tuesday, May 26th. We hope you all enjoy the unofficial start of summer, and look forward to seeing you Tuesday morning at 10:00!

Blue Grosbeaks Are Being seen

Blue Grosbeak (Passerina caerulea)

Photo by Eli Haislip

After arriving home after work on Wednesday, a flutter of blue in the brushy field next to my apartment caught my attention. Even from a distance of roughly 50 yards, I could see that the bird wasn’t behaving like an Eastern Bluebird, and the blue didn’t seem like the right shade even from a distance. I had my binoculars handy, and thinking I possibly had my first of season Indigo Bunting, I took a closer look.

I immediately could tell this wasn’t an Indigo Bunting. In addition to being too large for an Indigo Bunting, the colors were wrong. It had very distinct warm brown wing bars, and an enormous silvery bill that looked large enough that it could crush any seed or nut with ease. This was no bunting, this was a Blue Grosbeak!

Interestingly, unlike Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, they are not feeder visitors despite eating insects and seeds. Also unlike Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, who are only brief visitors between mid April and mid May, the Blue Grosbeak will spend the spring and summer here in Tennessee to breed and raise their young before migrating south to Central America and the Caribbean in the fall. This means that you can spot these gorgeous songbirds throughout the coming months. They prefer fairly open habitats such as scrub or brushy fields. I have seen them most recently at Bell’s Bend, where I observed a pair along the roadside just before you turn into the nature center. In the past, I have also seen them out in Pegram at Gossett Tract. With some birds not even arriving until July, there is still plenty of time to see these beautiful summer visitors!




Feeder and Seed Special; the Return of the Rose-breasted Grosbeaks and Ruby-throated Hummingbirds!

Return of the Grosebeaks!

Male Rose-breasted Grosbeak

Photo by Eli Haislip

If you have been procrastinating filling your feeder, now is the time to get it cleaned and filled! The Rose-breasted Grosbeaks are being sighted again! John saw these males in his yard today!

If you’re unfamiliar with what a Rose-breasted Grosbeak is, there’s a good chance you might have seen one at some point if you have ever had seed feeders out during the spring. These neo-tropical migrants pass through middle Tennessee on their journey from Central and South America on their way to their northern breeding grounds, giving us a roughly one month window from mid April to mid May to enjoy these beautiful birds at our feeders.

Males, as with many birds, are the stars of the show. With a black head, back, and wing, white breast, and then vibrant red below the throat, it is hard to miss these birds at a feeder. Females, on the other hand, are much more subdued than their male counterparts. My favorite description of the female Rose-breasted grosbeak is a female House Finch on steroids.

Female Rose-breasted Grosbeak

Photo by Eli Haislip

Male Rose-breasted Grosbeak

Photo by Eli Haislip

Fortunately for us, Grosbeaks are not picky and will happily feed on sunflower, safflower, or our various blends. If you haven’t seen any yet, there is still plenty of time as sightings will continue on through mid May!

Feeder and Seed Special

To celebrate the return of one of our favorite feeder visitors, Saturday the 18th through Wednesday, April 22nd, take 15% off any regular seed feeder and then receive 10% off any ONE bag of seed! (This special EXCLUDES Finch feeders) If you’ve been wanting a new seed feeder, or maybe just contemplating adding another one to your feeding station, now’s the time to do it!

Return of the Hummingbirds

Male Ruby-throated Hummingbird

Photo by Eli Haislip

In addition to the return of the Grosbeaks, Ruby-throated Hummingbirds are also being reported! While hearing this might make you feel an urge to take out all your feeders and fill them to the brim, we would caution against this and counsel patience. We are still close to four months out from the START of peak feeder activity, and filling your feeders now will only lead to wasted nectar. If you want to put out a feeder in hopes of attracting an early season hummingbird, we would recommend keeping your offering to just one feeder, with minimal nectar.

Female Ruby-throated Hummingbird

Photo by Eli Haislip

We always recommend making your own nectar at home, as it is as cost effective as it is easy to do. The recipe is 4 parts water to 1 part plain white table sugar. We cannot stress this point enough. 4:1 most closely replicates the nectar found in flowers. You are not benefitting the hummingbirds by making it sweeter. Also, it is extremely important to use ONLY plain white table sugar. Never use raw sugar, brown sugar, and especially never use honey under any circumstances. We will do a full length blog on hummingbirds in the near future, but for now know that plain white table sugar is always best.












The Campania Pre-order Sale Returns!

Wood Thrush Notes: Blog Update, Campania Pre-order Sale Returns, Birds Being Seen

Blog Update

For those of you who have been missing it, our blog returns this week!

If you have been wondering about why we haven’t been posting weekly as we have in the past, there are a couple reasons. First and foremost, readership is significantly down. Out of nearly 1500 subscribers, we often have fewer than 200 people who click through and read our blog. For those of you who do, we sincerely appreciate it! Each blog usually requires 2-3 hours of time spent researching topics and typing the blog, not including the time spent taking and editing the photographs each and every week. That is why moving forward, we plan to start doing the blog every other week. The format will be similar to our weekly blog of old, but with a greater level of focus and detail on the bird topics, and with more photos! For those of you who primarily get our sale updates through the blog, we will continue to put those in, or they can be found on our Facebook and Instagram pages.

Campania Pre-order Sale Returns!

The Popular Bjorn Fountain

If you have spent the winter admiring our collection of concrete birdbaths, fountains, and statuary, but perhaps we didn’t have quite the right item for your home in stock, you’re in luck! Our annual spring Campania Pre-order Sale is here again!

Today through April 1st, you can browse through Campania’s entire collection and special order whatever product you want at 20% off. The sale isn’t limited to fountains; any item in their vast catalogue of statuary, birdbaths and fountains qualifies for the sale. While you can special order anything you would like, to qualify for the sale price, there is a $150 minimum order. (This is for your whole order, not per item.)

In the days after April 1st, we will submit our order to Campania, thus ensuring that it will be delivered before Mother’s Day.

We are able to deliver items to your home with a delivery fee depending on what the item is and what is involved in the delivery.

To browse through their entire collection, click the link here.

Birds Being Seen

Spring Migration is here! While it’s still too early to see many of our favorite spring visitors, such as Ruby-throated Hummingbirds (the first reports in our area will occur in the last days of March and early April) or Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, (mid April-mid May) the first visitors that herald the arrival of migration are beginning to be seen. Northern Rough-winged and Tree Swallows are both beginning to be seen with greater frequency. In addition to these, Louisiana Waterthrush have been seen and heard at both the Little Harpeth River area at Edwin Warner Park, and also around the creek in Beaman Park. Have you been seeing anything new or unusual around your feeders, or during your walks? Let us know!

Savannah Sparrow

Savannah Sparrows are a native North American sparrow species that can be found in field and meadow habitats during Spring Migration. These unassuming little birds journey as far north as the Arctic Circle to breed!

Photo Courtesy of Eli Haislip








Happy Valentine's Day from the Wood Thrush Shop!

Great Backyard Bird Count

The Great Backyard Bird Count is here again! This weekend, February 13th- 16th, you can join millions of enthusiastic birdwatchers around the globe in a worldwide bird count! Sounds complicated? It might be easier than you think!

American Pipit

Photo by Eli Haislip

This bird is not actually missing a leg, it was simply drawing one of its legs up into its warm, well insulated down feathers for warmth!

The process is simple! Step one is simply picking where you’d like to watch birds. Don’t do like I do and overthink it for half the morning. Your bird feeder and favorite chair count as your bird watching location! Step two is to spend 15 minutes or more watching (and or listening) at LEAST once during the 13th-16th. You CAN use Merlin as your bird ID tool. Lastly, submit your findings on either eBird, or through the Merlin Bird ID app. I will link here to a video that goes into more detail about the process.

Do you like the idea of keeping track of the birds you are seeing, but want to leave smartphones and computers out of it? We completely understand, and have paper copies of the Field Checklist of Tennessee Birds, courtesy of the Tennessee Ornithological Society available at the counter just for you.

American Goldfinch

Photo by Eli Haislip

Despite the ice, this Goldfinch was still able to find seeds to feed on!

Sandhill Cranes Sightings

Over the last week, many people have reported to us that they have been observing large flocks of Sandhill Cranes flying overhead. They are often heard before they are seen, with their unmistakable bugling calls seeming to sound the start of the Spring Migration.

Sandhill Cranes

Photo by Eli Haislip

The V formation doesn’t just look cool, it is also an effective way for the birds to keep in visual contact with one another while flying AND conserve energy by flying in the draft of the bird in front.

Sandhill Cranes are large birds, roughly the size of a Great Blue Heron, although far bulkier. They are already beginning their long migration to their breeding grounds in the northern U.S. and Canada, with some going as far north as the Arctic Ocean. Let that sink in for a moment. The graceful V shaped formations we have been observing in the skies above Bellevue, Pegram, Dickson and Green Hills could be on their way to beyond the Arctic Circle!

Impressively, Sandhill Cranes are able to reach speeds of 50mph and often fly at altitudes between 5,000 and 15,000 feet!

More Sandhill Cranes

Sandhill Cranes are capable of reaching speeds over 50mph, and covering hundreds of miles a day.

Update:

In last week’s blog I discussed Jamie and I going out in search of the Red-throated Loon that was being seen at J. Percy Priest Lake. While we weren’t able to see it that day, I returned to the Cook Day Use Area the following Saturday, and with the help of a friendly birder armed with a spotting scope, I was able to find the Red-throated Loon! Thanks, Paige! Unfortunately, it was so far away that even with the 150-600mm lens on my camera, it was too far for a photo.

There have also been confirmed sightings in the same area of a Pacific Loon which we were unable see, so it looks like I will be going back out there when I next get a chance. Maybe, though, on a warmer morning!

On a Quest for Loons

A Thank you from the shop

We would like to start things off today by saying we hope that everybody managed to stay safe and warm during our latest winter storm. The outpouring of support and concern we received from you all was above and beyond what we could have hoped for, and we thank you for your support during this challenging time. Luckily for us, while the Westgate Shopping Center was without power, we managed to get by with the aid of a generator which enabled us to stay open, albeit for limited hours. Thankfully, all of us, our families, and our homes are all safe. We hope the same is true for you, too.

Fortunately, power is back to the plaza and we are back to business as usual here at the shop. In all the craziness, we almost forgot that with the month changing to February, it’s now National Wild Bird Feeding Month! Yes, there is actually a month dedicated to what we dedicate our careers to, so it seems like our time to shine! Next weekend, the 13th-16th, is the Great Backyard Bird Count. We will go more in depth on this worldwide bird count that you can participate in in next week’s blog, but stay tuned for possible last minute specials and deals!

White-throated Sparrow

Photo by Eli Haislip

On a Quest for Loons

When your alarm wakes you up at 5am and you find yourself picking your way through the icy patches of your parking lot in the pre-dawn gloom, all so you can drive over an hour across town for a CHANCE to see a particular bird, (not to mention in 22 degree weather) many people will think that you have gone too far. Many more though, ourselves included, will say that you are just getting started!

This is how myself and Jamie’s Thursday began. After meeting at the shop at 06:30, we settled in for the drive out to the Cook Day Use Area at J. Percy Priest Lake. Our quarry for this early mission was a recently reported Red-throated Loon that had consistently been sighted there in the previous days.

If you’re scratching your head, wondering what a loon is doing in Middle Tennessee, you’re not alone. Believe it or not though, Common Loons (the species that likely comes to mind when you think of a loon) are a winter resident to the mid state’s large bodies of water.

Common Loon Preening Itself

Photo by Eli Haislip

J. Percy Priest in particular seems to be a magnet for them during the winter months, where they congregate in loose groups. Common Loons feed by diving for small fish, crustaceans, snails, and various other aquatic invertebrates. You might not guess it by watching them in flight or on the surface, but they are powerful and graceful swimmers, able to change direction underwater on a dime in order to catch their fishy prey.

The species we went in hopes of finding was the Red-throated Loon. Whereas the Common Loon has been described as a “bruiser” by comparison, the Red-throated is slimmer and overall more elegant in appearance. They also have a slimmer, upturned bill. Red-throated Loons generally spend the winter along the coasts, and breed in the high arctic during the summer, making the appearance of one here in Davidson County worth the frosty, early morning drive.

When we arrived at the boat launch the bird had been reported around, despite our layers the cold caught us off guard. There was a biting breeze coming in off the water, and the skies were overcast and gloomy. It was so cold that there were even flurries floating around. All this to say, the conditions were making us wish we were still in bed. However, our spirits lifted when we saw the unmistakable floating silhouettes that could only be loons!

The Author Scanning for the Red-throated Loon While His Hands Go Numb

We counted 13 individual Common Loons in our particular area. We arrived at around 07:15 in the morning, and most of the birds were staying fairly still while preening themselves, which enabled us to get a good look at them. While we were watching them and discussing how little we would want to be in the cold, gray water, our hands were turning red from the cold. I thought I had forgot my gloves, which was only partially true. In reality, my gloves were nice and warm in the inside pocket of my coat that I forgot existed. It was even so cold that my camera was glitching again, and not allowing me to take more photos. Seemingly it had more sense than we did and wanted to be back inside. Unfortunately for us, the Red-throated Loon was not amongst the group that was in our part of the lake. We saw from a great distance (too far for an ID, even with my 30x magnification spotting scope) another large group of loons, in addition to gulls, further down the lake near an area known as Seven Points and while we didn’t have time to go down there that day, I plan on returning over the weekend to investigate both areas further. If I am successful, I will add a follow up to next week’s blog!

Common Loon

Photo by Eli Haislip